Friday 23rd - Children, Cycles, Chiang Mai

We all got up early to go with Ken, Nok and Boi to give alms to the monks, then we walked through the school playground, where we got mobbed! The kids were really funny, all taking it in turns to ask what are names were. They get taught English to a scary high standard very young. The night before I'd been helping one of the kids at the house with her homework, and she needed to know vocab like "Swiss Army Knife"!


After breakfast we headed out on some slightly rickety Raleighs with Ken in the lead. First stop was the local kindergarten. Thai kids are so unbelievably cute, though god alone knows what they must make of 6 giant farangs turning up and chasing them round the playground... they'll probably be in therapy for years! We messed around with them for a bit, and even sang them a song! Unsurprisingly, this resulted in one of them bursting into tears... the kindergarten teacher obviously sensed my overwhelming maternal nature and handed him to me. Hard pushed to say which one of us was most horrified, although at least I didn't cry. So that was another t-shirt covered in snot!

Back on the bikes, and off to the village temple. It's relatively new, and indoors there's a mural on the two longest walls showing how the community raised the money to build it. There's even a chap having a quick wee! Don't think you'd find that pictured on too many English church walls!

From there we cycled through beautiful lush farm land to a mushroom farm to pick lunch. There were two really cute puppies to play with, but that apart it wasn't the most exciting part of the trip!

On to a textile project, where I bought some pressies and a new bag for me. By now my thighs were killing me, cos my bike was built for your average Thai.. I was in real danger of hitting my knees on the handlebars!

After lunch we said our goodbyes to Aoi and her family and headed for Chiang Mai. We stopped in the way at some hot springs. They've been developed into a park, so we spent a happy half hour in the swimming pool. Much messing around and dunking like the bunch of big kids we all are! We had a stroll round and looked at people cooking eggs in the hottest pools, before hopping back into the songthaew and heading into town.

Time for a quick change and then into a minibus (an actual minibus!! with proper seats and a roof and everything!) and headed up to Wat Phra Doi Suthep. We drove up a mountain road (hairpins and vertical drops ahoy!) for about half an hour and then had to climb 380 steps to get to the temple! The story goes that the King wanted to decide where to build his Wat for the Buddha's relics, so he put them on the back of a white elephant. The elephant got to the top of the hill, walked around what was to become the outline of the temple and promptly dropped down dead. After 380 steps after that bike ride I had every sympathy!

The temple is absolutely gorgeous, far bigger and more opulent than anything we'd seen outside of Bangkok. Nok took us into a chapel where we all got blessed by a monk. One by one he sprinkled us all with holy water and tied a white string around our wrists, saying "good luck, good luck". Very simple but very moving.


We were able to stay til closing time (Nok knows the people at the temple.. but then Nok knows everyone!) to hear the monks chanting at sunset.



Back into town, off to the night market for dinner (and almost buying a Paddington bag), then to the Muay Thai boxing arena. It's kinda run down and seedy looking.. the area where we were sitting was almost completely full of farang.. I spent half the night chatting up some bloke from Nuneaton! The boxing's absolutely vicious.. out of the 5 bouts we saw, 2 ended with someone being carried unconscious and bleeding from the ring.. I just can't imagine Skippy doing it for fun! I watched the last bout from the betting pit, which was full of Thai smoking and betting.. got some slightly odd looks, I was quite glad to be 'with' the Midlands boys!

It was only just gone midnight by then, so as we'd already planned, we went out to get mashed! Headed to a bar round the corner from the hotel and ended up drinking towers of beer and buckets of Mekong Whisky and coke. Mekong's a legend amongst travellers; it's supposed to to have amphetamine in it, although Nok insists it's just that people drink so much of it that they want to have something to blame their behaviour and/or hangovers on! Anyway, we all got vewwy vewwy dwunk.

Somehow I managed to fall over just outside the hotel. I must have gone over like Del Boy falling through the bar, cos I had cuts on my shoulder, elbow and knee, as well as spraining my ankle! Koen pretty well had to carry me up to the third floor and then Jens appeared with his Danish Army first aid kit! He and Carmen patched me up whilst our ever caring leader giggled and took photos!