We headed to the bus station early on Friday morning to find that our bus was full, it meant a three hour wait in Chiang Rai for the next one with seats to spare. This was very odd after being in Laos, where there is no such thing as full. Over there once the seats were taken people were given plastic stools to sit on in the isles, once they were full people stood between the stools, once the isle was full people got on the roof. Full indeed.
Once in Chiang Mai we were greeted by the familiar sound of "Tuk Tuk, where you go?", Sion had terrible New Zealand flashbacks when her bag wasn't unloaded; it was the last bag off the bus and was sat snuggly next to the engine at the back, despite it now being warm and a little greasy we were very happy to see it! After a short ride into town we checked in to our guest house. We had decided to stay at the same place as two of our friends from Fiji, only they were arriving the next day. That evening we walked into town and had a gorgeous Thai meal at Antique House. Phil almost had us thrown out after commenting rather loudly about our waitress, to her face. Luckily she didn't understand his blaspheming. She was a rather tall ‘lady' in a very tight (and far to short for my liking) Tiger Beer dress. She soon gave up on our table and went to refresh the glasses of a group of middle aged white men. Still the food was nice! After dinner we got thoroughly lost in the night market. It was HUGE and unlike the one in Luang Prabang, it had loads of people in it.
The next morning we had a much deserved lay-in and headed out for lunch! We found a gorgeous little vegetarian place that did massive scrummy sandwiches and tasty smoothies. After the shock of standing up and realising how full we were we found an internet café and collapsed for an hour. When we got back to the guest house it was time to meet Melissa and Drew for the first time in 7 months, we were more than excited. For those with bad memories or those who are new to the blog, we met Melissa and Drew in Qaqalai in Fiji and travelled on to Ovalau with them to stay at the ghostly bed-bug ridden Royal Hotel. That evening we headed out to dinner and must have been walking for nearly an hour before deciding on a place to eat. We were all too talkative to think about food (odd for us I know). We stumbled on a place called Thai Thai, which surprisingly served Thai food. The meal was very nice and it was so good catching up on everything that had happened since we were last together.
The next day we walked to lunch and back. That took up four and a half hours!! It was miles out of town in a funky little area to the West. The food was totally worth it but in hindsight we should have gotten a tuk tuk! We walked through the entire old town, over both moats, through eerily quiet backstreets and past the women's prison that had a handicraft stall and were offering massages from inmates. That evening we met up with Melissa and Drew and two of their friends who were honeymooning in Thailand. Melissa's godmother's friend, Ronny, who retired to Chiang Mai from the States, was also there and she was a right character. She was a mix of Elizabeth Taylor and Liza Manelli but much more interesting. She's 77 and has been married three times, of no longer than three years each (we hoped her stories didn't scare the newlyweds!), she had a tattoo done for her 75th birthday and she is so glad she left the US. After a drink we headed to the Sunday Walking Street, an even bigger version of the night market that's held every other day of the week. It seemed like there were more people in that market than there were in Laos, it was very busy! We had our first Thai street food and were delighted when we saw they were using plastic gloves, not an item to be found anywhere else in SE Asia we've been. The food was yummy but it left us wanting more, we then tried coconut sticky rice with mango. YUM!! We were then taken to try some ice cream and were amazed when we saw the waffle cone being cooked and rolled into shape in front of us. After a loooong and slow walk around the stalls we all met up again at a jazz bar for some more drinks. On the walk back we stopped for Roti with banana and chocolate, again - YUM!! I think we're going to like Thailand for its food alone!!
After a sad farewell to our Fiji friends we went to bed and hoped we'd see them again soon. The next day was spent doing admin and figuring out where we wanted to go in Thailand. We bought train tickets three days in advance for a Bangkok bound sleeper train and all seats were full apart from the one that will arrive at 5:30am... oh well, at least we'll see Bangkok in a new light. Next stop is Pai, it is north of Chiang Mai but we've heard very good things about it so we're adding it to the list...