Chang Mai

On the way to chang mai in a very uncomfortable "vip" bus, i met an ex pat american called Bill and explained to him that i was thinking of walking from chang mai to mae hong son. He said the scenary was very bland between chang mai and pai and that i should rent a motorbike and drive to pai, which is about half way. drop it off and then continue my journey from there. he also said i could crash at his bamboo house in the jungle when i got to pai and relax. he was a wealth of invaluable information and pointed out many things to see along the route. including a jungle retreat where they teach meditation in english!! very excited about that!

i got to chang mai very early and the bus company took us to some dump of a hostel, prob hoping that we were so tired we would just drop where we stopped. i was having none of it and set off in the direction of a hostel called Julies, also reccommended by lonely planet. its got a fantastic common room area with a full size snooker table, a garden with hammocks and a roof top chill out area. this is more like the back packer style hostels of south america and autralasia that we all love!!! they only had a double bed room avaliable with en suit bathroom, but it was only 200bht per night so i jumped at the chance. if you get a dorm its only 70bht, which is about 1 pound 20 pence!

they serve reasonably priced food and the staff take people out during the evening. i do advice booking in advance though as they turn away heards of people in the morning due to being totally full at all times.

for the last two days its been the festival of Loi Kratong. this festival is celebrated by lighting lanterns and floating them into the night sky and by creating mini rafts out of leaves and lighting a candel and some inscense and setting them afloat along the river. with all the lanterns in the sky it looked like some magic setting from disneys mulan. there were literally tens of thousands of lanterns floating up across the sky. was like watching all the stars moving together! the hostel helped me make a raft in the garden (pics to follow) and we all trooped down to the river and set it off on its journey to god knows where!

we then went to a roof top bar which was nice, no chairs or tables, just sit on the floor and lounge around. and then after that we went to a regae bar that had live music which was great fun! i had a bit too much to drink again and stayed in bed the day after! need to go on a non alcoholic trek pretty soon!!!

going to head off in the direction of pai tomorrow and try and meet up with bill the ex pat! until then!