So far, our route planning for South East Asia has been considerably less structured than South America. We sort of have an idea of where we’re going but if somewhere looks interesting along the way then we’ll stop there for a bit (see Ayutthaya and Sukhothai). Having had quite our fill of the trains (we were starting to understand why the locals avoid them), we decided to take the ~6-hour journey north to Chiang Mai on the bus. We took our seats at the back and as the tour company had helpfully decided to remove the seats in front of us for some unknown reason, we were rewarded with ample leg room, something severely lacking in other parts of Thailand. As we neared the city, we twisted through the mountains and the jungle stretched for miles like a lush green carpet, peppered with “Attention: Elephants” signs. All in all, it wasn’t too horrendous and as Dave has previously mentioned, the Thai people seem to be more than capable of driving coaches around corners without causing the passengers onboard to fear for their lives. As with all the others we’ve encountered so far, Chiang Mai bus station is a practical but tired building, offering just enough free WiFi for us to be able to order a Grab (like Uber) and head to our hotel in the Old Town.

 

The Old City is a 1.5km square and was once surrounded by moats and walls to protect it. Some of the old walls still stand (although refurbished) at various entrance points but the majority were destroyed centuries ago. Still, there’s something about Chiang Mai that makes you never want to leave. Having said that, our first night here we weren’t sure we’d made the right decision, walking out to get some dinner we were confronted by what I’m told the kids call “banging tunes” and people trying to get us to come into their club. Pah! Don’t they know Dave and I are at least 65 on the inside?! It must be hard at this time of year to turn a profit, most of the bars we walked past were dead and in our week here we were rarely joined in restaurants by more than one other occupied table. Once we got past the “phat beats”, we were pleasantly surprised to find a street full of bars and restaurants far more suited to our curmudgeonly ways. Things are a lot more chilled out here, the whole city feels like everyone has just got out of a nice long bubble bath. We quickly tuned into the laid-back feel of the place and spent most of Sunday not really doing much at all. In the evening however we went to our first proper night market. All of Ratchadamnoen Road, running through the centre of the Old City, is closed off to vehicles and is chock-a-block with street stalls, musicians, monks, tourists, locals, food vendors, textiles, souvenirs, anything you could possibly imagine. Squeezing our way through the crowd, we were totally overwhelmed by the sights, sounds and smells, spotting everything from edible bugs to cheesy chips to tuk-tuk models made out of old beer cans. We also quickly discovered that one of the perks of being ‘not from round these parts’ is that even in a tight crowd, you can see over the heads of mostly everyone else, making for a much less claustrophobic and enjoyable experience. After wandering for a while, Dave, as is quickly becoming tradition, found another middle-aged woman to chat up and managed to find some shorts in his size, employing his flirtation skills to acquire a discount, and I found a bag. We spent a princely sum of around £12.50 in total – a real splurge.

Chiang Mai mentality thoroughly absorbed, and given that we’d pretty much been going non-stop since Bangkok, we decided to take a much more relaxed approach to the city, enjoying a late breakfast before heading down to Nong Buak Hard park, Kindles in hand, ready for a long hard day of not doing very much at all. It’s really exhausting all this travelling business you know. We also found that all the local museums are closed on a Monday, so we had to find something to pass the time! Located in the South West corner of the Old City, it’s quite a small park, with palm trees, fountains, fishponds and lots of tiny little black flies that get in your face, hover around your legs and make it difficult to read. I think at last count Dave had killed 82 (don’t tell the Buddhists). Tired of swatting, we headed off out of the park, stopping momentarily to buy some fish food and feed the fish (and also maybe the pigeons), before pausing  for a nice cold drink in a café inhabited by various different cats who came and went as they pleased, totally non-plussed by the farangs trying to fuss over them. Once again, we were the only people in said café, which was fine by us, we didn’t come all this way to MEET people for heavens sake.

In general, our time in Chiang Mai was considerably less action packed than our previous excursions into various Thai towns and cities. This boiled down to the fact that most of the things to do are temples and we are desperately attempting to avoid #toomanytemplessyndrome. In light of this, we spent most of the following day trotting around Chiang Mai’s 3 historical museums which are largely overlapping and don’t really have that much cohesion to them – it was just like being back in Cusco! We did learn about ancient Lanna culture though and the museums were good when taken as a whole; besides, aside from the overuse of the word “auspicious”, they had air conditioning, so who are we to complain. They also offered us plenty of opportunities to view our most favourite of cultural displays – textiles! Just when we thought it couldn’t get more exciting than the 9000 displays we saw in South America, we were treated to a rip-roaring adventure into the world of ancient Thai skirts. Our fave.

 

 

Having ascertained that we found the ancient ruins/temples much more interesting than the new ones (especially as they seemed less fussed about offensive shoulders in the older ruins), we decided to pop along to Wat Chedi Luang. Built some time between 1385 and 1402, the peak measured 80 metres from its base but was partially destroyed by an earthquake is 1545, leaving it at around half of its original height. It’s still incredibly impressive and once housed the Emerald Buddha, one of Thailand’s most sacred religious relics. We also happened to turn up half way through Inthakin festival so the place was  buzzing with monks and people coming to pay respects, it also meant that entrance was free – woohoo! There seems to be a festival or holiday every five minutes here in Thailand and we were beginning to understand perhaps why the French had decided this was a part of the world they wanted to get involved with, just think how many days off they could have! Inthakin is a festival unique to Chiang Mai and is a chance for citizens to offer tributes to the guardians of the city, focusing on the City Pillar, previously used in the construction of the ancient city. As we wandered around the ruins, we were totally enthralled with the celebrations, with various donation points dotted around the Wat, offering visitors a chance to donate to their birth year animal (Dave’s the tiger, I’m the chicken, boo.). Animal statues and buddhas were covered in flowers and we also observed people sending water up to the top of the Wat and pouring it onto the ruins. As we sat in the shade and enjoyed the cool breeze, a group of school children walked past and a few of them eagerly said “hello!” and waved at us, before one plucky lad decided he was going to get a high five from the two very white chunky people sitting under the tree. Before we knew it, he’d started a stampede, and Dave and I were inundated with pre-pubescent children eager to slap their hand against ours and offer us a hello. It was absolutely charming. If there’s one thing we’ve noticed here in Thailand it’s that people are a. incredibly eager to practice their English with you and b. always happy to help, even if it means they have to resort to charades.

 

In the afternoon, I had somehow managed to convince Dave that a trip to the cinema to see Godzilla: King of the Monsters, was in order (I still owe him for Mary Poppins Returns), so we headed off to the Central Festival Mall, located a few miles outside of the Old City. The Central Festival Mall is a bit like Lakeside, if Lakeside was 3 times as pleasant, had 1/3 of the people, and had an ice-skating rink in it. It also had a Marks & Spencer so we spent a few minutes mooching around their food hall, delighted to find Percy Pigs, Custard Creams and red onion chutney, before deciding that perhaps we could settle in Thailand after all. Thailand has very strict Lèse-majesté rules, which basically means that any negative comments regarding the monarchy can get you locked up. Tourists have often fallen foul of this law, even for blogs written outside of Thailand, therefore I shall simply say that having to stand for the national anthem and a short video praising the King before the film started was certainly an experience I will never forget and  truly a great honour. Should anyone wish to find out just how stellar a chap the new King is, they need only Google him. Moving swiftly on then…

Apart from a trip to a slightly more disappointing night market where we acquired two fantastic beer coolers which seem to be all the rage here, the rest of our time in Chiang Mai passed relatively uneventfully. We did find some rather lovely kittens next to our hotel and as such I now carry a small supply of cat treats wherever I go but it was nice to have a bit of down time. The city’s relaxing vibe seems to seep from every crevice, and I think we probably could have spent several weeks drinking and reading in bars without noticing how quickly the time was passing. But, we didn’t spend all this time saving to drink ourselves into a stupor (well, at least not every night) so onwards to Laos we headed…