6th Nov 2012

Bit of a cultural morning, went and visited 3 of chiang mai's most famous budist temples. They were beautiful, lots of gold leaf, Buddhas, flowers and decorations. There were many monks around, one in complete meditation.

At one of the temples a lady was selling little birds to set free, with them you make a wish as the birds are blessed. I did this but not sure if these birds are not just trained to return to fly back to her!

The temples were in the old town. Which is a square area surrounded by a wall and a moat. We are also staying in this area.

So after our cultural morning we decided to head to the newer part of town. We walked for what seemed like hours towards the river, it was the hottest day so far!

We walked through china town with hundreds of stalls selling everything you can think of, when we got to the river we had a look round at the shops and stopped for a disappointing lunch at a cafe.

After this we decided to look in an art gallery- it had sculptures made by local university art students, we also met a 'history teacher' who told us where good street food and tailors were- however after a Skype call with Rebecca later that afternoon and a look on the Internet it looks like this is a common scam to get tourists into their shops so glad we didn't fall for it!

In the art cafe next door we had the most amazing ice coffees ever, so nice we took a photo of them- and they tasted better than they looked.

After a tuc tuc back to the hostel, we had a quick change and decided to head back to the newer side of town where the night bazaar was for the evening.

After a lovely BBQed red snapper for dinner from street vendor. We then had a quick look round the thousands I stalls that had been erected in the last hour or so! You really could get anything here, but the majority seemed to be fake goods- jewellery/bags/t shirts.

Went to the rasta cafe as there was a live band on- unfortunately we were the only ones there, the band were not very good and playing 60s covers which we were not expecting so left after one drink.

In the way back to he hostel we stopped in the rooftop bar- at home I'm not sure if this would pass and health and safety/building guidelines!! But it was lovely to be up high overlooking the old town walls!

When we got back to our room- Ben sat in the bed and it broke the frame!! One too many pad Thai's perhaps!Läs mer