Hanoi

Our journey to Hanoi was extended, hassled and eye-opening. The initial trip into Vietnam via the international bus was pleasant (apart from a nerve racking ferry across the Mekong) enough taking around 5 or 6 hours with only the border crossing being painful - why oh why did the coach company insist on taking all our passports to the desk and then try and call out our names (in very bwoken (sic) English) to pass through - result a huddled mass of people with huge suitcases radiating in the heat, looking confused at each announcement and blocking the way through for anybody unfortunate to be standing behind them, but called through before them. We have this system that works very well elsewhere - its called queueing.

Luxury(ish) bus

A couple of hours later and we arrive Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) - why you may ask did we go via Ho Chi Minh when our destination was Hanoi (exactly the other side of Vietnam) - good question. Well due to over eagerness on my part top book cheap flights (from Ho Chi Minh to Bangkok) and lack of flights from Cambodia to Hanoi meant we were to spend a night in Ho Chi Minh before flying north.

The Neak Luong Ferry looks a lot safer than it felt (or probably is)

We were a little apprehensive arriving in Vietnam given every guide book basically states to trust no one and expect to be robbed. Hence we nervously parked our backsides in the Bus Company's office whilst we meekly awaited the arrival of a porter from our hotel. The jolly big fellow duly arrived and helped us carry our luggage five minutes down the road. Our room was nice (even having a PC) yet (like many in Ho Chi Minh) having no window. We settled in for the night after some awful food at the restaurant downstairs. The next morning the hotel organised us a cab (the cabs here are a 'delight' btw - more on that in the Ho Chi Minh blog) and we set off through the sea of mopeds to the airport. Check in was reminiscent of India - the emphasis is on who can appear most innocent when completely circumventing the large queue and walking straight to the desk. Luckily we had some western allies in front of us and we managed to ensure our place, although I think the masses of Vietnamese behind us may not have been so lucky. We'd chosen Jetstar Pacific Airlines for our journey mainly because it was ridiculously cheap, but still offered some comfort in the fact that Quantas own 30% or so. Here is a hint for any trip you take to Vietnam - avoid them like the plague. Our suspicions were first aroused by the queue of locals behind us - they appeared to be mainly unwashed, coughing, carrying small children and exceptionally confused by the whole airport process. This may seem a cruel and patronising opinion, but when the man sitting next to you wipes a good amount of the contents of his nose all over the seat in front of him I feel fully justified. The plane itself was knackered (20 year old 737s), I was quite relieved when it finally got into the air as the rattles and vibrations receded to a level where a shouting conversation was feasible. On landing (yet another rattling delight) we got to the terminal building to find Monali's baggage had undergone a secondary inspection (the type where handlers look for dangerously expensive goods) luckily they'd just opened the flap at the back that contains the rucksack handles. No wonder they ask at check in if you have money, laptop or camera in your checked baggage! Having survived this ordeal we travelled into town courtesy of the hotel pick up service. Our Daiwoo (or other similar crappy Asian brand car) driver drove erratically whilst banging out house tunes from the early nineties - the three or so near misses at speed appeared to be normal practice. We were therefore relived to reach the comfort of the 'Deluxe Hotel' 30 or 40 minutes later.

Bat Su Street from our Balcony

We were staying in the old quarter of Hanoi and were quite excited to go explore (mainly because it was lunch time). We stepped out the hotel and (avoiding the mopeds) entered Highway 4 (or something like that) a restaurant across the street. The place specialised in adding just the right amount of insects to a meal to put you off. Crickets in the mango salad, locusts in the soup and ants with the chicken cashew nut. Needlessly to say we went without our insect protein.

Cold, wet and miserable in front of Hanoi's Cathedral (closed)

The old quarter (and Hanoi) turned out to be a total dump. Don't believe what the Lonely Planet states about quaint old streets or bunkum from other travellers about the people in Hanoi being 'proper' Vietnamese compared to their tourist whoring cousins in the south - the whole old quarter being nice thing is comparable to the emperors new clothes. The weather is grey and depressing, the streets are filthy with dirty water standing next to the street cooks, and you risk your life every time you walk around as mopeds swarm like packs of bees. The motorbikes here seem to conspire in order to get you - you can't walk on the pavement as the damn things are parked everywhere ('cos they get stolen otherwise), but then you can't step into the road because you'll either get wiped out or your bag swiped. Of course there are some highlights - while ours was the airport departure lounge, we did visit some listed as having more historical significance:

Cold, wet and miserable in front of the mystical lake

• The dirty, smelly lake (Hoan Kem) that fills the centre of the old quarter - according to local lore it is inhabited by a god like turtle to whom an emperor of old passed a great sword after victory against the Chinese. Judging by what we saw at food stalls, if there was a turtle (or any other kind of wildlife in here) then the locals would have ate him years ago.

Cold, wet and miserable taking photos of the opera house

• The Opera house - apparently based on the one in Paris - I'm not sure if the opera was up to much, but its house seemed fairly uninspiring to me - you know, four walls, roof that sort of thing.

• The 'Hanoi Hilton' where John McCain and other Americans were detained during the Vietnam war has mostly been destroyed to make way for new office buildings. What remains are a bunch of old dingy rooms signposted with propaganda about how beastly the French were (no disagreement there) and how kindly the Vietnamese treated their American guests (no mention about any torture etc).

In the back of a Chinook (big helicopter)

• We also visited the Army Museum (yet another venue with a two hour lunch break like in Laos). Mainly a bunch of American planes, tanks and other weapons - possibly our particular highlight given the excitement off sitting in the cockpit of a captured Chinook (complete with bullet hole and suspicious red staining in the windscreen). Across the street is a small park containing what must be one of the last standing statues of Lenin - the old red cloaked rogue.

And that was it - a very boring and miserable few days. Even our normal pick me up (Asian food) was dull - we ate 'Pho' the national dish which turns to be tasteless soup with noodles. Luckily we had invested in a much more expensive form of stimulant - a trip to Halong Bay!!

Siem Reap

Half way to Siem Reap

Our flight from Luang Prabang 'hopped' in Pakse (Southern Laos) and then descended across the flat plains of Northern Cambodia into Siem Reap's jazzy little airport. $40 lighter and one blank page less in the passport we emerged from arrivals to be met by 'Lucky' our tuk-tuk driver courtesy of Mother Home Guesthouse.

The Tuk-Tuk's here are different to the 'Auto-Rickshaw' type we saw in India. They are basically a 'horse & trap' configuration, but (obviously) with a moped rather than a horse. Surprisingly they are quite cool as the wind acts to keep the temperature down. Lucky delivered us and our luggage (which only just fitted into the trailer) safely to our guest house.

Romance is not dead (nor was the small flower worm...)

We were anticipating a lot from our new resting place given the fuss it makes about being number one on tripadvisor. And the place does deliver (five star facilities they ain't), but the constantly friendly service with cold towels every time you return to the hotel and smiling obliging faces at every request. On initial arrival they even go all out with fruit in the room and fresh flowers on the bed and in the bath - even if the flowers left a little maggot behind on the duvet.

Angkor Wat - temple number one

We arranged a couple more days of Lucky's time - selecting a couple of trips from the helpful tour board left in our room and then went to pick up two three day tickets for Siem Reap followed by an hour taking in sunset and some stunning views at Angkor Wat.

The bridge to Angkor Wat

Siem Reap (meaning 'Siam Defeated' an insult to Cambodia's Thai neighbours which is still relevant today - they constantly bicker) is home to a whole city of old temples (now by this time you may be thinking we are a bit sick of temples, but this is different). These were all built by a secession of egocentric kings about 800-1000 years ago. The biggest complex is Angkor Wat (and this is the name most associated with the area), but there are many, many, many more temples and buildings to this area than just that one. So after we bought our tickets, saw our first (Cambodian) temple we headed back for a dinner and an early night in anticipation of the next day.

Gateway to Angkor Thom

The next day we took the 'small tour' which concentrates on Angkor Wat and the buildings in the ancient city of Angkor Thom. We skipped Angkor Wat with the intention to come back later and headed straight into the ancient city via a fantastic bridge over a moat, each side held up by large god like statues and a large arched entrance topped by four faces looking out in each direction.

After walking through the gate we continued to view the structures contained within:

Temple two - my favourite

Bayon Temple - a favourite with something 40 or 50 towers each capped with similar faces to those we saw on the gate. The faces are supposed to be those of the King - it seems he was quite keen on his appearance.

Another temple

Bapuon Temple - a huge pyramid structure which some donut decided to take apart brick by brick and therefore, is now being reconstructed courtesy of the French.

Elephant Terrace

Elephant Terrace - as the name implies - a large terrace with lots of pictures of elephants - very nice!

Terrace of the Leper King

Terrace of Leper King - most of the buildings throughout the city have statues with limbs falling off and it seems that some idiot thought (sometime in the past) that meant the king that built this had leprosy. In fact as often happens the afflictions are age and weather related rather than trying to represent a medical condition.

The forest has taken over at many temples

and so it continued with at least four or five more buildings visited. Some of the temples we saw had been taken over by the forest with huge trees taking roots in the walls and ceilings of buildings. The saddest sight was the amount of young children (mainly girls, mainly aged 8-14) hawking postcards, water and other tourist paraphernalia. There was no question, these kids should have been in school and the local authorities really need to do more to enforce this.

Taking a break

By 1pm we were knackered, hot and dusty. We went back to hotel to wash and rest, leaving Lucky to search for more clients. We took a 20 minute walk down to the local market area which was very similar to the markets we had seen before - t-shirts, dresses, hooky DVDs, 'replica' watches and bizarrely a huge section devoted to sea food (a touch on the too stinky to eat side). The great part about the market is that it is situated in the buzzing area of town with loads of restaurants, bakeries, shops and bars (one of which was frequented by Angelina during Tomb Raider filming).

Day two - temple one

Day two we went on the Large Tour which takes in the temples that are further out. Rather than repeat myself - just imagine more heat (as we set out at 12:30pm - mistake!!), more steps (lots of climbing) and just as many people trying to sell you stuff. There were a couple of stand out structures - one where the temple was set in the middle of a set of man made water features and one huge monastery type thing with strange looking buildings and loads of trees taking root.

More forests

We were fairly sick of temples on day three and so decided to go horse riding. We booked the two hour trip (rather than a half day) the night before - afraid that the small Cambodian horses might not be able to carry my svelte figure for longer than 120 minutes. We were picked by tuk-tuk and driven about 20 mins to the other side of the city. The 'Happy Ranch' run by a Cambodian American (a very amiable chap called Sanny who left Cambodia courtesy of the US embassy 20 or so years ago).

Grand National winners

The Happy Ranch was very nice, the horses seem to be really well cared for and other than having to carry fat bastards like me they live quite a nice life. After mounting our horses and being told that my horse quite liked to (a) kick and (b) lie down, we (nervously) followed our guide into the Cambodian fields that surrounded the city. We ambled past farms and small holdings with pigs, dogs, tons of ducks, pools full of fish and masses of small children waving and saying 'hello.....bye-bye', reaching a little visited temple that was our half way stop after about an hour. On our way home we accelerated to trot and even canter a number of times which caused me great concern given that I have not ridden a horse properly for about 20 years. I needn't have worried and thanks to my surprisingly well behaved horse all I ended up with was 'saddle' bottom, sore muscles and a hunger for some more horse riding soon.

That afternoon we spent yet more time in the market area- buying t-shirts and some audio and video downloads from an enterprising chain called 'Rogue'. I assume they pay off the local authorities in order to maintain their presence!

The next day we were collected by our pre-booked mini-bus which was taking us five hours south to Phnom Penh, the capital and our last stop in Cambodia.

Luang Prabang

While the safety record of Laos Airlines may have improved drastically over the last ten years (per Lonely Planet - apparently they used to throw a six to start when it came to navigation, regularly plowing into mountain sides) the safety record of the airport cafeterias seems still to be firmly rooted in 1975 Asia. And so our first night in Luang Prabang was disturbed by my sore stomach accompanied by some less savoury symptoms.

The 'Airfix' MA60

The flight from Vientiane to Laos's old capital is only about 40-60 minutes and affords some fantastic views of the tremendous mountain and river scenery. Despite the relatively expensive tickets it was the preferred option over a 10-12 hour bus ride - doubtless to be shared by chickens, rice and other Lao commodities. Laos Airlines seems to be doing a good job, my only concern (luckily noticed upon descending the aeroplane steps) was that the plane in question was a Chinese manufactured MA60 - the juddering vibrations (on this new plane) heard on approach now made sense. Upon further research not only was the thing made in China, it was designed in Russia........in 1957!

The whole place is a UNESCO world heritage site

After a scary few moments when the luggage belt stopped minus our luggage (it was found - presumably they were checking for valuables and probably much to their disappointment) we jumped in a cab from the airport and journeyed to what turned out to be our disappointing hotel. Luang Prabang is massively popular with grey haired moneyed culture whores (is that a bit strong?) resulting in inflated prices and crappy standards. Our hotel was ok, but noisy, dusty and with a management that didn't really give a crap as they were full every night! Case in point was the asthmatic shower that pumped out less hot water than an arctic stream. On first complaint the management replaced the shower head? On second complaint they told us that these clearly ancient electric showers were only three months old and that we had the best one!

The town itself is very nice - the main (touristy area) is comprised of one long street running the length of the peninsula on which the town was built. The street is fully furnished with the full complement of tourist agents, restaurants, bars and gift shops. Our favourite spot was the local street creperie. Daily delicious crispy crepes smothered in honey kept Monali a very happy girl indeed!

At one end of the street there is a huge Hmong night market with all sorts of local handicrafts. They could very well be 'Thai' local handicrafts for all we knew, but to be fair they did have some really nice stuff. As normal it was quite disappointing to invoke the no space for shopping rule.

Sightseeing wise, we saw yet more temples, well the inside of one temple and the outside of many others. The Kings Temple is at one end of the peninsula and is (those with more sophistication than us should stop reading now) pretty much similar to every other temple we have seen. The highlight being the walls of some buildings being decorated by a pretty glass collage  in Japanese style.

Pretty walls

At the very end of the peninsula you can cross the river to head into silk farm....it looked rather like a tourist trap so we gave it a miss. We did however find a couple of tourists taking rather strange photographs - she was the model, dressed up as a local, imitating (poorly) local dance moves, the photographer was arty looking fellow (long hair) who seemed to take his style cues from Tarzan. Perhaps they were professionals, however their 'crew' comprised of two young local girls seemed to lack credibility.

Bizarre

The King's palace (he was kicked out by the commies back in '75, kicked out rather than murdered - Laos people are far too laid back for violence) was in the centre of town. The staff take a lunch break between 11:30 and 13:30 (very reasonable considering they are open at 8am and close at 4!!) and so arriving just after breakfast (11:15 ish) we decided to take in Phousi Hill (opposite the palace) and its many temples. After the exhausting initial climb we reached the highest temple, the views of the peninsula and it's river 'moat' were much more impressive than the temple itself. There is also a great view of planes approaching the airport and the new runway which will bring even bigger planes into Luang Prabang. On the way down the other side of the hill we took in the various Buddhas, shrines, 'Buddha's Foot' - his feet (at about 6ft long) are marginally bigger than mine and the monastery at the bottom of the hill.

More religious paraphernalia

We then headed to the palace - rather modest affair all told- again the highlight being the throne room with the same glass mosaic designs we saw at the King's temple. We also quite enjoyed reading the Laos royal family 'story' - rather like the story of Thailand its a bit out there - prince is exiled to the jungle, while the Mrs is out getting the dinner, gives his kids up to a man who can change his form between devil like person and nice person. Kid napper takes the kids back to the city, King finds his grand kids and decides prince wasn't all that bad, so tells him to come home. Then King dies and aforementioned prince becomes King. Doesn't sound that entertaining now, but it was better than looking at the displays containing the King's pair of shoes, or the King's pyjama trousers.

Petrol station in the garden

After the palace we took a look at the royal family's cars. Mainly gifts from the Americans - think 'thanks for letting us bomb the crap out of your country, here is a cadillac'! They (and the petrol pumps in the garden) didn't look as of they had been used for a few years.

Monali was not a happy kayaker!

Foolishly we booked some kayaking (white water, caves and whisky village route) with the White Elephant Tour Company. The tour guys were great and very professional, however our kayaking skills and stamina left much to be desired. It all went fairly smoothly to begin with as there was quite a bit of current to propel us along. As the river relaxed, we had to get to work, but our coordination is not all that. This resulted in the whack of colliding oars (accompanied by swearing) far more often than the gentle swish of rowing propulsion.

Pak Ou

We stopped for lunch at the Pak Ou caves, which are, well big caves. Caves with lots of Buddha's inside them. The highlight of the stop (other than resting our sore, wet arses) was the lunch - chicken, vegetables and rice. After lunch (by which time we'd joined the Mekong river) the rowing became really tiring - not only did we have to battle the wind which was much more noticeable on the huge expense of water, but we also had to move out the way of the motorway like traffic that zips up and down the river.

Whisky Village = Newcastle in the 90's stolen vehicle heaven

We finished the trip at 'Whisky Villgae'. This place is a tourist hell - but you have to hand it to the locals, they have worked out how to make money from a sustainable source and to be fair the place still has a villagy feel. In fact our arrival was greeted by ten small boys who bounded into the water intent on turning our kayak upside down so that they could enjoy 30 seconds of using it as a float. We found the oars to be good deterrents against the little monsters. My role as a disciplinarian was needed a few more times as they attempted to move off with bits of kayak while we were loading the truck.

Hygiene standards at the Whisky Village surprass
 those in the Highlands of Scotland

After five nights it was time to leave and it was about time we got our lazy backsides out of bed in time to watch the monks beg for alms. This is the primary reason that many of the tourists come here, but we are lazy and therefore even though the temple drums had woken us most mornings we had not been able to face a 6:30am start until the day we were leaving. The monk procession is a unique and fascinating sight, made a little cringe worthy by heaps of tourists who seem not able to keep to simple guide book advice and kneel when handing over rice. After many attempts at getting a good, arty picture (not easy with our little cheap camera) in less than optimal lighting conditions we went back to our room to finish packing.

We grabbed a final croissant at the local bakery and headed to the airport to catch our flight out of Luang Prabang and out of Laos. Our useless hotel had conveniently forgotten to book our taxi (after reminders the morning of and the night before), but were keen to point to the tuk-tuk driver who just happened to be across the road (very suspicious). We managed to flag down a taxi (its the same price as a tuk-tuk strangely) and made our way to the airport. After we managed to bypass the tour group queue we headed to international departures, passing a couple who were flying to Cambodia in order to catch a flight back into southern Laos the same day - they were unsucessfully trying to convince immigration to let them use the same visa??

Possibly the only time I'd choose French workmanship
 over that over another country

After checking our plane was of the French ATR variety rather than chinese, we relaxed in departures awaiting another new country!

Vientiane

We hopped on a Tuk-Tuk in Nong Khai and journeyed 10 minute along the Mekong to reach the Friendship Bridge, the end of Thailand and the start of Laos. We scrambled onto a very crowded bus with our backpacks to cross the bridge and then bought our visas from the surprisingly efficient (and honest) Laos border police. From there, it was another short taxi ride into Vientiane. On driving into Vientiane, you can immediately feel the change of pace.  Thailand was already very chilled but Laos is something else. It’s hard to describe but to say that the place is laid back is putting it very very mildly. Luckily, being as Dan and were of like mind, it was not hard at all to adjust.

Kermit before BBQ

We arrived at our very French and very quaint hotel (Hotel Khamvongsa) by the Mekong river. The hotel was simply adorable and our favourite to date. We liked it so much we found it extremely hard to leave the room but forced ourselves out simply to eat the amazing breakfast every morning-fresh mangos, Belgian waffles, pancake gateaus, warm croissants etc. My mouth still waters when I think about it.

Vientiane is surprisingly small for a capital city and is very French in essence complete with it’s own Arc de Triomphe replica. Funnily enough, it is referred to as ‘the vertical runway’ by the guidebooks as it was built out of cement donated by the USA in 1969 for a new airport.

On our first night in Vientiane, we walked down the Mekong river browsing the night market and salivating over the restaurants cooking and serving food along the walkway. We stopped to eat at one of these and were a bit perturbed when we saw the giant frogs waiting in a bucket to be stripped and roasted. One of the delicacies happened to be roasted frog skin salad! Appetising as that sounded, I sadly had to give it a miss. The great thing about Laos keeping it’s strong French heritage is that you can get good wine in majority of the restaurants, something that I have really missed in the rest of Asia.

Post ATM - Lao Millionaires

The next day, we spent the day wondering around the city, checked out the National museum and realised there was not much else to do but eat so we devoted a great amount of time and money to that particular pursuit. We checked out the obligatory temples and having denoted the appropriate amount of time to culture, decided to get our physical needs taken care of with a lovely Thai massage. That night, we went to a supposedly great French restaurant recommended by the Lonely planet. I absolutely love French food so was really looking forward to it only to receive something that looked like it was a frozen dinner that was warmed in the microwave. I would have been okay with that too but it was the cockroach that I discovered in my fish midway through the meal that finally made me decide I really could not eat any more! Even the excellent (and now free) creme brulee could not make things right.

The next morning, still traumatised by the memories of the floating cockroach dinner, Dan and I decided to visit the COPE centre which is an organisation dedicated to supporting the victims of UXO (unexploded ordnance). We were really shocked to hear the facts: the USA dropped 260 submunition bombs on Laos between 1964 and 1973 and 78 million of them failed to explode. What is more shocking is that Laos had more bombs dropped on it then were dropped in the entirety of Europe during the second world war. Sadly, majority of the victims appear to be young children who are out playing in the fields. It was a very enlightening and very touching visit-I had no idea about this issue until now. What’s really shocking is the lacklustre effort being made by the US to clean up the mess.

Touring another temple

As I alluded to earlier there really wasn't that much to do in Laos's capital city. Luckily we were quite happy taking daily massages, browsing 'replica' watches, eating til we burst and sipping cheap, quality wines.

Vietnam visa - $50 a go

The rest of the time in Vientiane, we spent riding around on a motorcycle but as there were not too places we go, that only took a few hours a day. Our one achievement was getting our Vietnam visas sorted. I was a little nervous about Dan driving as this is the second time he has done it but he drove like a pro. Thinking about taking motorcycle lessons when we get back.  

Nong Khai

Nong Khai was our gateway to Laos – the small border town is the Thai home of the Friendship Bridge, the primary land link over the Mekong to Laos. It was built with Australian assistance a few years back. Because we weren’t sure about border proceedings or whether we would be delayed on route we planned to spend a couple of nights here before continuing on to Vientiane.

Our journey was uneventful, a mini-bus connected Udon Thani Airport arrivals direct to Nong Khai and the driver was kind enough to ring our hotel and get exact directions to drop us off. I was anticipating our hotel to be nice, but a bit of an ordeal as I’d only managed to find it via a forum link and their website was entirely in Thai. In reality it was more a novelty than nuisance, which was probably also true for the hotel owners who don’t seem to have had many if any non-Thai guests.

Luckily for us the lady owner’s daughters both spoke good English, albeit irritatingly (for a staunch Englishman) with an American accent. After some initial confusion about a double bed not meaning two of them, we settled into our brand new, sparkly clean room.

Seeing in the Chinese New Year with a beer at DD

That evening we headed to the DD restaurant on the recommendation of the hotel. Rater confusingly, but entirely justifiably many of the restaurants don’t have their names in Roman script. This makes it difficult to make sure that you are in the place that serves well cooked chicken noodles rather than undercooked, stale snake heads. Luckily for us Monali’s sixth sense was on form and we picked the right Thai scrawled sign for DD. The food was excellent, as was the atmosphere given the Chinese new year celebrations – good enough for a return visit the following evening.

On the Thai side of the Mekong - Laos waiting just across the water

The next day we surveyed the local market, found the post office and attempted to buy USD (essential for the Laos visa) from 4 different banks. We managed to get a total of $113 from two banks – that was it, we bought Nong Khai’s entire stock of USD, a town famous for the link with Laos where visa prices are in USD!! 

Our eventual entry into Laos was exceptionally easy other than having to lug two huge bags onto a very crammed bus that takes you over the river. Basically the Thai authorities stamp you out, you buy a ticket for the bus across the bridge on which the entire population of Nong Khai seems to descend, on arrival on the Laos side you ignore all the polite taxi touts while filling in the visa forms, handover 35 USD each and welcome to Laos!

Chiang Mai

7 nights in Chiang Mai gave us a chance to kick back and relax however, it was going to take a little longer to wind down then we thought. We knew that we would have to get over the 5.5 hour journey (which annoyingly stops on request at people’s houses to drop them off) and to a certain extent we knew that getting from the bus station to the guesthouse would also be painful – luckily we found the fairly well organised taxi rank. However, we didn’t bank on (a) Nok Air cancelling our flights from Chiang Mai to Udon Thani to get across the border to Laos and (b) getting the noisiest room in the hotel thanks to its position directly above the lobby on the 1^st floor, right by the street.

Pat's Klang Viang ('City Centre' in Thai)

Serenity finally prevailed the next day by which time we’d booked new flights with Thai Airways and moved to the back of the hotel where it was possible to get a good night’s sleep. Our hotel turned out to be quite nice (Thailand seems to be pretty good at budget accommodation). It had the essentials we needed: wi-fi; big LCD tv with DVD player; crisp, clean sheet; and nice smelly stuff in the unusual concrete formed bathroom.

Looking back we didn’t do all that much in Chiang Mai, but given our hectic schedule (and I know all of you reading this at work will have sympathy for us here) it was nice not to have a plan. I don’t anyone can really appreciate how difficult it is to plan one’s social life on a full time basis.

Shops galore at the night market

Of course we spent quite a lot of time ‘shopping’ – our definition of shopping is a little different to that within the Oxford English as we tend just to look at stuff and plan to buy it when we return with (a) a bigger suitcase and (b) a income stream. Our one exception was DVD’s – dodgy copies of the latest flicks to keep us (cheaply) entertained in the evenings. The shopping here is immense – every area of the city is defined by its shopping – the night bazaar is a 1km long row of stalls with huge market buildings that stem off either side of the street filled with merchants selling fantastic textiles, intricate jewellery and wonderful housewares. Further up the river there is a china town area which is almost entirely a market, again with clothes, but also flowers and foodstuffs. On Saturday and Sunday there are two separate ‘Walking Markets’ – mile long sections of street are shut off and 100’s of stalls sell art, t-shirts, books and food (including cockroachs and fried maggots – yum). Contemporary shopping is a little further out of town with a large modern mall next to the airport containing all the usual brands. Around the same distance out of town in the other direction there is a more exclusive area with Thai boutiques and coffee shops. This place really is a shopping mecca – fellow men you have been duly warned!!

Masses at the Sunday Walking Market

Getting around Chiang Mai is fantastically easy and a lot less daunting then we first thought. Forget expensive tuk-tuks who will charge you double as soon as you they see your foreign face. We used these red truck bus things – you find one that is going generally in the direction you wish and then tell them exactly where you want to go. They drop you off at the door like a taxi would and it costs just 50p each – very simple and very easy.

More temples, more dragons....

Being a Thai city Chiang Mai has a gazillions of temples – we managed to see just one – we were thinking that God had seen enough of us just lately - having been to a dozen or so temples in Ayutthaya and Sukhothai. The temple was nice, but pretty as it was the Buddha was still in the same alter like position and surprise surprise there were loads of dragon statues about the place- the only moderately interesting feature was an old monk fella who sat still and silent, meditating at the side of the great Buddha.  Cue some European tourists continually taking pictures and seemingly attempting to communicate with him – I am of the opinion that passports should not always be a fundamental right.

....and of course Jade Buddhas

Mid-way through our time in Chiang Mai we decided to get active – we organised a tour comprising quad biking and white water rafting. Quad bikes have a bit of bad reputation in the UK – other countries (including Thailand) need 4WD motorbikes – in the UK they seem just to be used by celebraties (e.g. Ozzie Osbourne) to relive their youth and injure themselves on their massive landholding. It is no surprise that these accidents happen – the bikes themselves are heavy and difficult to control (even if the local 8 year old seemed to be an expert). Perhaps the biggest danger is overconfidence – as you feel secure on four wheels, but in actual fact we were travelling at 30-40km/h and a sharp turn of the handlebars would have made these things flip easily. It was a really fun ride though – about an hour on the road and then an hour through the forest, a great way to feel at one with nature while probably actually doing your bit to kill it via carbon emissions and tearing up the footpaths!

Would you trust this girl on a motorbike?

I won’t talk too much about the lunch – it was awful. Deep fried chicken and plain rice with tomato ketchup – we all wished we’d pretended to be vegetarian. At least they didn’t try to feed us terrapin – we saw a young boy pull a couple of these out the river a few days earlier!

Halfway down the rapids

The afternoon was reserved for white water rafting. We all boarded an extremely knackered out flat bed truck / bus contraption and headed up river to the start point. This itself was probably a more dangerous adventure than either quad or raft given the steep cliffs and the need for the truck driver to keep a keen pace as 1^st gear was broken.

We survived

Rafting was great fun- we were teamed up a couple from Bermuda and a local expert who steered the boat safely through the rocks. We were totally soaked at the end and felt a little stupid for not bringing a change of clothes. However, the ride home was not too long and we managed to escape hypothermia.

Food is central to everything in Thailand (perhaps that is why we like it so much here) and it is no different in Chiang Mai. We tried the night market food court a few times – their Chiang Mai spicy sausage was very nice and very good value. We found our favourite spot a few days after arriving conveniently located just down the street – Monali fell in love with the pineapple shakes (ice slushy with fresh fruit) and we both like the tasty large portions of phad thai and udon noodles.

One evening we ventured out to the Thai Boxing arena. We were initially disappointed as our hotel had made a huge fuss about it only being held on Friday night. Friday came and when we turned up at 9pm we were the only ones there – apparently our tickets were for Saturday – so ‘Sandy’ the owner of the bar told us to return the following evening and he would let us in. On our return a rather differently looking Sandy (think little black dress and wig) greeted us and showed us through to our table, where it seemed all us stupid (overpaying) tourists had been sat. The locals all stood around the other side, eager to place their bets on who would win.

The fights were interesting though a little scary especially when the youngsters bounced into the ring. They looked a little bewildered standing up there surrounded by hundreds of foreign faces. The most vicious fight of the night was the lady fight (actual ladies, not ex-men type). One of them fell to the floor at one point only to receive a kick to the face which sent her flying across to the other side of the ring – she got right back up and went back for more!

During our stay we celebrated our first wedding anniversary – no big presents due to budget / packing constraints, but the hotel were able to organise a large custom chocolate cake, a bunch of red roses and pineapple juice – perhaps not the most lavish of anniversary celebrations, but a heartfelt one at least!

The hotel was also having a celebration – the owner Pat had organised a spiritual ceremony to bless the hotel. This involved building a huge wig wag type edifice in the lobby around which the hotel workers and staff sat attached via string to the wig wam and the rest of the hotel. A little bizarre, especially when the monks starting chanting (and didn’t stop for at least two or three hours) and burning incense which you smell all over the hotel. It was very nice to witness, but we were rather glad our time for sitting with chanting priests for hours on end had finished a year ago!

Chocolate cake & pineapple juice

It was quite sad to leave for the airport on our final day. We had not really chatted with Pat that much (though she had been very helpful with the anniversary surprise and tour suggestions), but we felt that we had become an unusually familiar presence for a hotel staff that normally sees guests for only three or four days maximum. We took a  few pictures and Pat herself dropped us off at the airport and she told us a little more about her son, her past in Bangkok and the USA and how she had only moved to Chiang Mai recently to buy the hotel and a tourist restaurant.

She bid us farewell at the airport, remarking that our next major destination (Laos) was a little like Chiang Mai twenty years ago. The airport was nice enough – clean and well organised with even a separate area for the monks to sit. It was quite nice to watch them all excited about travelling and then a random lady approaching them on her knees to present them with cold bottles of water for their trip.

We boarded what seemed like a huge plane (747) for such a provincial town, but it appeared to full for the journey down to Bangkok. We were connecting there for a flight to Udon Thani from where we would travel to the border town of Nong Khai before entering Laos.