Day 1 – Journey to Chaing Mai
It was bloody brutal! I’m pretty flexible but I don’t think
my knee should be pushed to see how far it can reach my ear, or whether indeed my foot can reach the opposite
wall. I had one a few years back and don’t remember it being so painful, foot
massage from now on. Glenn had some pretty brutal elbowing and back-walking to
contend with too and once finished, we were both exhausted and glad to escape
back to our guest house via a short stop for more coconut shakes.
Bout 6-8. Lighter weights, more of the same.
A quick breakfast and then off to the station back to
Bangkok, it was hot!, we got cheap seats and even with the windows open we (and
the Thais) were melting throughout the 2.5hr journey.
Arriving in Bangkok we were informed that the next train was
in an hour’s time, fearing we wouldn’t make the flight we got a taxi and faced
the Bangkok Traffic!. The Taxi drivers are pretty good in Bangkok, time is
money to them so they weave in and out of the various Jams and so we made our
flight in plenty of time.
The flight was on time and pretty uneventful, we even got
fed a pasty type thing each J
. Arriving in Chaing Mai we negotiated a taxi to our guest house, give we went
over budget we opted for a £7 a night one. It was a bit run down but clean with
en-suite, hot water and even a TV (which blasted your eardrums when you turned
it on and no way of turning it down). It even had a little Gym downstairs with
free-weights you could use for 50baht. We discussed doing a work out for 2
seconds and decided to opt on exploring the town and finding a cold beer
instead!
Chaing Mai has a really nice feel to it, quite a lot of ex
pats move here as it’s much cheaper up north and still maintains some local
charm. 
To Glenn’s delight we found a bar which played football and
he got to watch the Norwich v West Ham match but he was too tired to sit out
the 2nd half and we went back for an early night.
Our friends Kathryn and David (who we met in Myanmar) were
already in Chaing Mai so we messaged them and was looking forward to meeting up
with them the next evening. It’s quite a big place with over 500 guest houses
to choose from so we hoped ours wouldn’t be too far from them.
Day 2 – Chaing Mai – Casablanca moment
In all the hostels in all of Chaig Mai in all of Thailand you had to walk into mine….
Glenn took the bags downstairs whilst I did the usual under
the bed, behind the bathroom door checks when I heard loads of laughter,
following the noise downstairs I found Kathryn and David enjoying a breakfast
waffle after their morning workout (they are much better than us at keeping up
the Gym routine!). Now there’s a coincidence!, We caught up with them briefly over
a coffee and arranged a meeting point for later that evening has we were
checking into another guest house around the corner.
Checking into our new digs (bit more plush but £15 per
night) we set-off to the Chinese market to find some clothes for Glenn. His
clothes are slowly falling apart, he has a pair of shorts where you can see
through them now as they are so thread bear the rest are hanging off him as he’s
lost so much weight on the trip. I on the other hand have not lost any, in fact
my beer belly Stan Ogden a run for his money!)
After about 2-3hrs of schlepping around our only purchase
was a roll-on deodorant and a needle and thread (to make some urgent repairs).
It’s tricky finding long shorts for a ‘6’2” bloke when you are in Asia!. Plus
he has a weird aversion flip-flops with thongs and the only alternatives we
found were not going to tick any fashion boxes!
Giving up on the shopping, we headed back towards our guest
house for a bite to eat. The guest house was in a lovely part of town, very
leafy and quiet but with little alleyways leading off it which had lots of
pretty cafes and bars with a real hippy feel. Trying out a local delicacy, can’t
remember the name, something ‘Soy’ but it was a noodle soup type thing with more
crispy noodles on top and tasted like a fusion between Indian and Thai,
delicious!. That done, we headed back to our room to relax till the evening!
On the way to our meeting point, Glenn told me to carry on
ahead whilst he ran into a bar, looking very mischievous. Meeting Kathryn and
David he whispered in David’s ear and then they both announced that it would be
good to watch Arsenal V Leicester match (David’s a big gunners fan!). About
turn, we went back to last night’s bar for the boys to get their football fix.
Happy Valentine’s J.
After footie: Arsenal won 2-1, we headed to the night market
for some delicious bbq’d meat and then onto a sit down place for roast duck. We
wanted to go onto a bar but to our total horror everything was now closed, so
not a big party town then!. We ended up going back to our guest house, getting a
few beers from the pay fridge and chatting away to the wee hours, no doubt
keeping our neighbours up!
Day 3 – More of the same!
So, you will quickly be able to tell that our stay in Chaing
Mai is largely made up of meeting up with our friends in the evening and not a
lot else!
Not going to draw this one out, we got up, fuzzy headed!,
sourced some travel books for Laos and Philippines (managed to trade in our 3rd
hand Thailand book for the equivalent of £5 J.
Did a bit of research on Laos and then booked our trip, we opted for the 6-7
hour mini bus to the boarder then a 2 day slow boat along the Mekong River.
Exhausted from our efforts we headed back to chill out at the guest house till
the evening where we were meeting up with K & D again.
Witnessing our 2nd motor bike crash of the trip
whilst we waited for our friends to arrive, A Thai and 2 tourists, they both
got up! We all agreed that it would be a good idea to eat first! We headed by
Tuk-Tuk to a place they had eaten at previously, delicious authentic Northern
Thai Food.
We then headed to a few bars, one playing lots of dance
music (David loved it, Glenn didn’t) then onto a live rock band bar playing
really REALLY heavy music (Glenn loved it, David didn’t). Leaving the Rock Band
place we found all the bars were closing again and so we asked for some advice
and headed to a late bar which was pretty surreal, a real mixed bunch but it
did cold Chang!
It turned out that whatever order you eat food or drink in,
you still get smashed with these two! J
Day 4 – Ground hog day
Really REALLY fuzzy heads today! I think we managed to get
out of our room by noon and I’d managed to talk Glenn into a massage as he had
a bad back from crap beds. We headed off to a place our friends had recommended.
Glenn was pretty nervous as he isn’t a big fan of Massages since the one where
he was assaulted in Vietnam, the girl insisting on giving him a ‘Happy Ending’.
When we arrived, I decided on a full body massage as the
place looked really good with a queue of people, Thai and Tourists. Glenn opted
for a back/neck/shoulder massage. I was asked to change into some togs (you
have to for a full Thai massage as they pull you about so much. To Glenn’s relief
I was on the matt right next to him so I could project him.
Tonight we were only meeting with Kathryn as David had
booked an overnight retreat to a Monastery with monks where you did lots of Omming
and meditating and getting up extremely early to do more of the same. Kathryn however
was going to join us on our planned night, Thai boxing!.
The boxing ring was in a really seedy part of town, which
made it really interesting to walk through. Arriving, we was glad we opted for
the cheap seats as it was a pretty small arena and you had a good view from
everywhere!
It was brilliant, much more brutal than Phi Phi and REAL
this time.
Bout 1: lasted about 3 mins where one Thai took out the
other with a roundhouse kick to the ribs OUCH
2: Girls, really boring, more dancing than boxing!
Bout 3: Best one!, the guys were actually Psyching each
other out offering each 3 punches to the face, and taking the hits!. Cartwheel
kicks to the face, MAD!
Bout 4. A break so entertainment boxing which consisted of 3
blokes blindfolded swinging arms and legs around with the vague hope of
connecting with something or someone, the ref got a few digs too!
Bout 5: Two heavy weights, we thought this would be a good
one but they can’t move as fast so lighter is better
Still a bit jaded from the previous nights out, we took some
photo’s of ourselves in the ring and said our goodbyes to Katherine and headed
back to the hostel as we had an early start the next day.
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