Bye Bye Chiang Mai, Hello Chiang Rai!

After almost 2 weeks of pain, frustration and boredom after the accident stuck in Chiang Mai myself and Lorraine were only delighted to get the hell out of there! Although it is a fairly cool place, we were just sick of it and eager to put the whole thing behind us.

Ok so we got a public bus to our next stop which is Chiang Rai.. Pretty interesting journey as it is quite mountainous & we would have to be sat next to the only fat person in thailand On a brighter note the journey was a mere 3 hours so it wasnt all that bad. We arrived late enough in the evening & the night bazarre was in full swing.. ten times nicer than the market in Chiang Mai. The atmosphere was way more relaxed & there was live music playing in the background. Its a pretty small place but with plenty of charm. Personally i just think we were both dying to leave Chiang Mai after being there so long & thats why we instantly took a shine to it. We found accomodation close to the bus terminal, a guesthouse called City Home. The room was pretty basic but there was a hot water shower & a bed so we were perfectly happy. Unfortunately there was a bar right outside our window blasting cheesy boyzone & westlife tunes (they are everywhere over here)
until the early hours of the next morn so we got up early & got our stuff together & went to find other accomodation.

Chiang Rai Night Market

Like most people travelling we try to avoid accomodation recommended by the lonely planet books but in this one case we hit the jackpot with the Baan Bua Guesthouse. Our room was lovely & there was a class area in the garden to sit & chill out. We both loved it there. We spent two nights of bliss there & then prepared ourselves to go trekking with the hill tribes for two days.

We did really take the piss a bit In Chiang Rai just lying round most of the day, eating and sitting, eating and lying down.....it was great! We did explore the town for a bit one day for a few hours and nearly collapsed with the heat. We got 'kinda lost' and some thai fella just told us to turn around and go back at one stage, we thought best not to disagree!

Now this we found hilarious! But of course myself and Lynders have been told we've 'a questionable sense of humour'! Its just a clothing shop for oversized thai women, who are rare in themselves in Thailand, we just question the marketing genius who wants to attract oversized clientele with a large picture of a pig on the window!

We knew though that it was about time we did something cultural so signed up to stay 2 nights in the mountains with the 'Akha' hill tribe nearby....hopefully these mouintains would be kinder then the last!