Day 9

Chiang Mai

Getting barely any sleep on a seat slightly too small for me, next to a person who didn't understand the invisible line we shouldn't cross between our seats, and sitting right under the AC (cold for the first time since Scotland) - I surprisingly felt awake and dare I say a touch refreshed. Given a breakfast of soy milk - which tasted like wood shavings and PVA glue blended together - we soon arrive in Chiang Mai and brush our teeth in the toilet.

We make our way into Chiang Mai's old town - a square section of the city completely surrounded by a perfect square of walls and a canal acting as a moat. On our way I grab a chocolate and banana waffle from 'JJ's Waffle' for breakfast which was lovely but probably not very Thai - either way cheers JJ.

We had achieved peak tourist with Alfie reppin the infamous double backpack, plus giving us am exclusive look of his Valentine's Day monstrosity of a gift for Daisy. We end up going Wat (temple) hopping again which seems to be the hot thing to do in cities - but can definitely become repetitive. I feel like I'm soon gonna be Wat-ed out if I don't take a break.

After a change into trousers and checking out Wat 1, we plan to meet with Sam and his new friend Ellie at the next Wat. We ended up hanging out with them for a few hours where I passed on my knowledge of Buddhism and Wat etiquette from Dang - where some hyper realistic monk wax figures thew us off completely. We then went to lunch at a sit down restaurant - even treating ourselves to a Leo beer. Out of Leo and Chang, I think I'm a Chang man. After stories from Sam's time in the RAF and Elsie's time as a respiratory nurse, we part ways so we can check in and shower at our hostels.

After a decent length walk we arrive at our hostel, it was very nice and modern with a great vibe but also a ghost town, only seeing 1 person who didn't work there. The beds were small doubles which is a backpackers luxury so I'm definitely going to be happy tonight. After showering and more planning (who knew there'd be this much planning) we head to the Night Bazaar for some food and a mooch about. As it was Valentine's Day (happy Valentine's Day), Alfie had a long call with Daisy, which left me alone for over an hour - giving me my first taste of solo travelling. Wandering round the markets was cool as it had a lot more variety than Bangkok - with less knockoffs and more artisan things. It was around this time in the food stall sections that I had noticed that Chiang Mai felt alot more touristy than Bangkok, probably just because they were more concentrated, but definitely more white peeps.

I grabbed some spicy food and sat down eating taking in the atmosphere, then grabbed a cold Smoothie to soothe my throat a little after the spice. After finishing my circle around the market, I ended up back at the start listening to some live music. Eventually I met back up with Alfie, having hinted to Daisy about his gift. We grabbed some dessert, got back to the hostel, did some booking and eventually went to sleep ready for our early staty for the Jungle Trek tomorrow.Read more