Phu Jaya Mini Resort Chiangmai Chiang Mai

... were a bit in doubt about spending much time in the Phuket/Ko Phi Phi region and we thought this was more holiday material than serious traveller stuff. However, we somehow decided to do it only a 'little bit' and had a 2 night stop in Ao Nang, a nice beach place close to Krabi. Which was basically the worst of all options - instead of a lovely white beach area it turned out to be a very commercial touristy spot (admittedly with some nice views) where the locals ...

... in-one tickets to the border with Laos and the two-day slowboat trip down the Mekong to Luang Prabang. After this was done, we headed back into town, joined by Adam, a guy from Leeds who I'd got chatting to the previous evening who had just finished his law degree at Leeds Uni, where I went. We arrived at Susan's hostel, and me and Adam grabbed a beer while Susan went to get changed.<br><br>We left the hostel soon after this and headed to a ...

... then found once we got going they would actually lye down for us to get on, and you could call out &#8220;Pai Pai&#8221; for pretty much everything and they seemed to know what we meant.<br>Once we arrived back to the camp we washed our elephant in a lovely muddy man made elephant swimming pool and scrubbed them with a simple hard bristle ...

... for the past two days. Next, we headed to the white water rafting area. The rafting wasn't all too hectic or difficult, but it got us all in the water to help the cool down process. After about an hour of rafting we found our bamboo rafts waiting for us to float down the rest of the river. The rafts are steered like a punting boat with a huge bamboo pole using the bottom of the river to push it in the correct direction ...

I must admit to feeling a little disappointed when we first arrived in Chiang Mai, dropped off in the heart of the old city at 4am on a Saturday night, right outside a long row of girl bars. We weren't expecting to see any of these in Chiang Mai and here we were sitting outside a bar watching Thai woman twirl and twist every time a western man came within range. I was expecting a quiet mountain town and this certainly wasn't it. We had to ...

May 24   We went to doi sutepth this morning. Temple on top of the mountain. We started with the intention to hike up but found out that it was 14 kilometers and while we may have been able to handle that in our JMT prime, I get winded walking to the next food stall. So we hired a truck (songtlow) to take us up the mountain to the temple. You still had to climb up many stairs to reach it. It was a special sacred place almost ...

... I must go there to say hello and give her a big hug from "Gerdien". So I've got her name and the name of the hotel she manages, and figure that is a pretty good connection when I go to the beaches of Zanzibar! Spent a good chunk of time in an air-conditioned Internet cafe, which on this hot day, was a pretty good place to be. I also decided that I would check out a massage place that Joy told me was the BEST massage place in Chiang Mai. It was a little ...

... anything that wasn't exact. Not exactly what I wanted to do at that point when I thought I was going to either have a complete nervous breakdown or throw up. But here's what is perhaps most important: I never, ever thought to do this. Call the three national credit reporting organizations immediately to place a fraud alert on your name and SS#. I had never heard of doing that until advised by a bank that called to tell me an application for credit was made ...

... the music was really good and this sweet little old man got up to sing, but he became considerably less sweet when he began to sing Sex Bomb by Tom Jones!!!! A few litres later we jumped into a tuk tuk and headed for a club (not till after Jess had tried to persuade every member of staff in the bar to come with us). We ended up in the most sleazy bar/club we could find but unfortunately that was all that was open after 2am. The bar slowly filled up mainly with male ...

... less than ninety days, but no go. I really didn&#8217;t know the letter of the law, or I&#8217;d have pressed it, so I was just winging it. Apparently so was she. Since next day would begin a new six-month period in which I&#8217;d only have three entries, she gave me one day. I&#8217;ll have to go to Immigration tomorrow and request a new stamp. F*#k me dead. I don&#8217;t know what they&#8217;d have done if it were more ...