to the city and back to the hills

So we were back in Thailand. It was quite odd how developed and Westernised it felt after Laos. Never noticed that there was such a big difference! Anyway, it made a nice change and always good to be in Thailand...

We spent a couple of weeks travelling around the north which was totally different than the beaches and sights we've seen in Thailand before. Sadly for us, (but good as well really) Chris's job offer for freelance work came through earlier, so at this point we split from Chris and Becky for a week or 2, while they went off to do a last minute bit of diving. We knew it was coming just not so soon! boo hoo. Really sad to see them go. Its been a fantastic 4 months together. Thanks you 2 and good luck! See you in Australia! (We would also meet up in Kuala Lumpar in a couple of weeks but I'll tell you about that later).

So we spent a couple of nights in Chaing Rai in the coolest placem- it was like a room for a gnome or something, with all green gnarly furniture and the bed up some steps. Very funny. Caught up on some Thai curries.mmmmm, had a bit of a wander round the city- not too much to see and to be honest it was all a bit of a shock to the system afetr the calm and quiet of Laos...so much traffic and shops! argh!!! they do had a great night market there though, with live music and a big open square.

We headed off to Chaing Mai then, briefly stayed over night. Visited a mall which felt crazy! I felt like I'd been xmas shopping on Oxford ST on Christmas Eve. Bizarre- my head was spinning!!!!! (Don't worry, I since recovered from this problem). But we did manage to pick up a tent in the hope that we're going to be able to save lots of money on accommodation. We'll see.... My main memory of that night in Chaing Mai was the shock of the heat at night again! Its so mountainous in Laos that it got really chilly, whereas this was absolutely baking. So yes, we just sat there and sweated in a bar and ended up listening to music from about 3 different bars at once, which was quite painful!

We then headed to the Cave Lodge near Mae Hong Song. This is a lovely place up in the mountains and set by a river in a little wood. Its very tranquil, they have a big communal area with a big fireplace in the centre (you needed it-again it was freezing at night!!) and a table tennis table. It was a lovely few days, went for some walks by the river and in the forest, went into a cave in a little raft and climbed up into the massive caverns, and chilled out really. In the evenings, at one end of the cave all the bats fly out but at the other 300 000 swifts fly in to feed on the insects and roost. Its quite an amazing sight-the air is just thick with birds!

After that, we went to Mae Hong Song for a few days. Its a lovely little town, but not what I expected-its totally manicured, with a little lake and fountain in the town centre. Its more like a little village in Austria or something! We had a very nice and exhausting day cycling up hills whihc nearly killed me in the heat- such hard work. Anyway, it was all very lovely-visited the national park, and a nice waterfall- until Marc decided to try and take a photo of some dogs racing the bike beside me. And somehow managed to go flying over the handlebars and land on his head. There was lots of blood, and black eyes and bruises...oh dear!