Getting to Chiang Mai

  Chiang Mai, Thailand
Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Transport woes from Nepal were finally laid to rest when we arrived at Kathmandu Airport. Royal Nepal Airlines flight was running about 3 hours late, so we were incredibly grateful to be flying on Thai! Thai is divine and by comparison a model of efficiency. They start the flight with drinks and snacks, followed by gorgeous Thai food with wine - refillable - then coffee and cognac! They even give you real cutlery...

We arrived at the Thai airport and once again within what felt like 15 minutes we were through everything. The only thing we had to wait for was the baggage which was no more than 5 minutes. This time we decided to try and find a hotel from the airport, but this was a mistake as the touts add their own extra fees. We decided to give them the finger and started a long evening getting to know the pre-security features of the airport. We felt that for about 4 hours sleep we didn't need to fork out 1200 baht. We still both think it was the right decision.

Old Style Thai House

At 5 am we could FINALLY check in, and then just before 7 we left. A short sleep on the plane later we were in Chaing Mai. We found a nice guest house, dumped our stuff and went to find breakfast. Afterwards we went to confirm our cooking course and were going to go home to bed, when we bumped into a very nice Thai man and his fiance on holiday - trying to do all their wedding shopping here as it was the cheapest for everything...

We both were very suspicious but it was completely unfounded - proving that people can be very nice. We took his advise to go to a local Wat - one of many (apparently there are over 300 in CM) to watch the young monks getting ordained. We were too late for it, but passed a funeral and then bumped into a Japanese jewellery designer. His wife is a fashion designer from France and he too told us that this was the cheapest and best place to get clothes made. He also told us that the local government clothes shop had just won a SE Asia tayloring competition and were having a 25% discount for this morning only.

Due to this, and the fact that it had been confirmed twice we decided to take it up. So via the nearest tuck tuck we headed off exhausted and no doubt smelling like.... to get fitted. Well not quite fitted, measured and choose our designs. Finally after a long walk home we could shower and get some sleep. Then at 8 we went back to the shop to get our first fitting.

Mike's first fitting

From there we went to the night market to see all the "genuine" designer articles - as Hugh Grant says in Notting Hill - "Some real, and some Not so real!!", or in Thai, "Same Same, But Different!" We finished off our evening with a good Phad Thai before going home to sleep.