Re-retreating to Chiang Rai

It's been a while since we visited our friends just outside of Chiang Rai, so it was a nice change (again) from Chiang Mai's tourist scene. We did, however, have dinner in town at the restaurant right in the centre of the night bazaar, a couple of times. Nice meals, great company and some good and bad entertainment up on stage.

Retreat to Chiang Rai - Mae Sai

After last night's belly full of good tucker and an excellent sleep we headed off to Mae Sai, on the Thai Burmese border. 'S' borrowed his Mum's pick up truck which seats five. There were seven of us. We were invited to ride in the back with our young Rastafarian friends but decided we're getting a bit long in the tooth for that sort of thing.

We've been before, and over the bridge to Tachileik, but this time we were visiting the markets...markets I didn't know existed. To the south and left of the bridge, behind the main street buildings, lies a labyrinth of stalls, hundreds of them.

Retreat to Chiang Rai

One of Stray's TEFL class mates, 'S', has returned home to a quite village just outside of Chiang Rai, now that the course is over. We were lucky enough to pay him and his friends a visit over the weekend. At the Chiang Mai bus station Stray goes off to find out at which platform our bus will be arriving, because this time he bought second class return tickets and tells me he doesn't think its the usual VIP Green Bus. Instead he points to this...which looks much nicer in the photo, than in real life.

..."and we only have second class" he says, "we'll be up the back with the chickens." I know the bus is going to Chiang Rai, because I can actually read the writing now.

Whatever!

I know him well and wasn't surprised when our real chariot arrived. Even in second class, the Green Buses are cheap, comfortable and air conditioned, you just don't get the first class snack and bottle of water...whoop dee doo.

Videos - Northern Thailand 2009

We've had small videos stashed away and have never done anything with them. So (to take my mind of everything) I'll be uploading them according to their location, to our blog. Some are incredibly short and have a strange metallic sound?

Intersection outside of the Parasol Inn (centre of Chiang Mai) where the Sunday night walking market takes place, along with cake in child proof packaging.