Finally dozed off on the bus to be suddenly woken by a Thai woman barking orders like some hyped up drill instructor which I wondered what was more impressive the fact that she did this in English, Hebrew and Japanese or that someone could have that much enthusiasm at 6am.
Piling off the bus in double quick time no doubt to avoid doing 50 press ups or some such, we then took a short sawngthaew ride into the centre of Chiang Mai with no large buses venturing much further where we all staggered about trying to figure out where they had dumped us. Lucky Chiang Mai's city centre made up of the old district, still partially surrounded by the old city walls and moat, ain't too big so did not take long to trudge over to Moon Muang street which is the main traveller centre and follow my nose into one guesthouse with the smell of freshly baked bread wafting out of the downstairs cafe.
Went for a walk around some of the cities many wats but feeling pretty watted out by now after seeing so many I wondered what most people did here when not on treks in the surrounding mountains as the place did not appeal to me too much on arrival. The evening saw Chiang Mai's famous night market come alive and with it being Sunday was even bigger than usual with a large array of food stalls to re-fuel at including sticky rice and mango which may just be my new favourite desert. More thumbnails ...
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