chiang mai

After being denied a final, quiet night living in high style because the locals down the hill decided to put on a rock 'n roll banshee-a-thon til all hours we caught the bus to Chiang Mai. It was a remarkable, if somewhat lurching and swerving, trip down through the lush, rolling jungled hills (with wats and stupas emerging through the greenery and one huge stupa on top of one huge hill)- I can see why motorcyclists love riding here.

Have been in CM only for the afternoon but so far we're enjoying a kinder, gentler version of Bangkok and its been easy to find a guesthouse and pretty decent coffee as well. The traveler area within the old city is a labyrinth of said guesthouses,local businesses, coffeeshops, wats, pubs,travel agencies, and the inevitable massage parlours. Its not too bad to walk around but one still has to keep one's wits alert to traffic and be bold when crossing streets.

Our digs here approach spartan but at $15/night we can't grumble. Tomorrow its off to the zoo/aquarium (which is supposed to be decent enough) and trying to book a gibbon/zipline trip for the day after that. Tonight its off to the night market and just might stop in for a pint of Guiness (on tap) at the local Irish pub. I think Liverpool ans Chelsea are on live there at midnight tonight but I don't think I'll quite make that one.

All in all a good day's travel and its also nice that neither of us have been here before so we're exploring together, Aah, there goes the evening gong from the local wat: sunset!

Cheers
KerryTraci

PS: Haven't been able to figure out how to scroll within this text box in order to edit so thats what I blame the typos on...