Suriwongse Hotel Chiang Mai

... The children have been basically sleeping on the concrete floor, so it feels good to be making their sleep more restful ;)

So as you can tell things are happening, and I have been fairly busy. The first few days in Chiang Mai it was great to have Matt here. Turning up to live in a new city can be daunting, but it took the edge off having him here to explore the city with me. We also went on a few road trips, if you drive like fifteen minutes out of town you ...

... bar. I asked her if she was travelling by herself, she said yes. I told her that I was also travelling solo and asked if I could join her. She agreed so we talked for a while then got some dinner and checked out the bar scene.

She was this blonde girl from Vancouver named Kerri. Surprisingly, she was only 18 and she'd already seen much of India and quite a bit of SE Asia as well. After hanging out at a rooftop bar for a few drinks we ...

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 ...

... in the hotel register and the person before you has put their date of birth as 1990!! We had a look around many buddhist temples, which are all very new and gold and we ate lots of weird food at the massive night market. Some good (mango and stick rice) some a bit dodgy (jelly, we think). Then we headed 6 hours further north for the quaint trip across the Mekong to Laos (where eating sticky rice with every meal appears to be compulsary).

... jumping out of the raft, dragging us over obstacles and hopping back in with out getting wet . We actually were able to knock a few of the other river guides into the water. I will have to say our team consisting of Jessie and myself and the French couple were pretty kick ass. We didn't get stuck like the Israel team or waste time splashing each other like the Swedes. Once we broke free of the rapids where all the other teams sat atop of rocks, we increased our ...

... n went to Tiger Kingdom n stroked big n baby tigers, it was amazing being so close to them but also quite scary (especially with the big ones).then we rode the bike to the top of dpi suthep (a big mountain) to see the highest temple in Thailand. Had to cruise halfway back down with the engine off cox we were running out of petrol! Off to the locals Market tonight, will update with tiger pics when we can get to a pc.

January 7-10, 2009: Chiang Mai, northern Thailand Chiang Mai - Ancient Capital of the Kingdom of Siam Thailand is dubbed the Land of a Thousand Smiles. This title is entirely appropriate as we would find during our longer-than-expected stay in this Southeast Asian stalwart. The Thais are some of the friendliest people you will encounter and Thailand's overdevelopment as a tourism hub is well earned given the generiosity of its people. However, the ...

... away with none of the usual awkward silences. Our first stop was at a food market to buy supplies, as we would be away from civilization for a whole 2 days. After this we head to the jungle, where we stop for lunch before going anywhere. This is exactly what the review on the net had said so we were getting a bit disheartened at this stage. Lunch was good though, cooked by our guides. After lunch we went to walk to the base camp for the night. We were expecting an easy as you ...

... against Israel!)

We managed to find the England game being shown in a bar right next to our hostel, which was perfect.

It started at 11pm but I didn't want to miss it, so we walked in and saw that no-one was watching the tv. So I asked the bar staff if they would mind turning over for the footie.

Just as the teams walk out 2 ...