Chang Mai is Thailand's second largest city behind Bangkok and has a very different feel to the capital. Set at the foot of a steep mountain range it's a lot more relaxed and laid back than Bangkok. We stayed just outside the old town in a great hotel called ViengBua Mansion which was a recommendation from a couple from Bradford so we had to trust it. On the first day we got our bearings, walked around the old town, visited the Chang Mai museum and generally took it easy. We also booked a mountain biking trip into the mountains and tickets for the Muay Thai boxing match the next day. Unfortunately we didnt bank on bumping into some Canadian friends we'd met in Laos that night. One thing led to another and, after a stinking hot green curry, lots of Thai beer and tequila shots we arrived back at the hotel at around 3.30am. The bus was picking us up for the mountain biking trip at 7.30am.
Tash missed most of the health and safety, route planning and equipment overview, choosing instead to sit outside on the step and try not to think of cauliflower cheese sandwiches and the smell of tequila. I was fairing a little better with my bottle of Gatorade (great hangover cure by the way).
To be honest i thought that the company were being a bit over cautious with making us wear helmets, knee pads, elbow pads and gloves. Little was i to know that the trip we had booked as a 1 on the scale of 1-5 difficulty level would actually turn into something from that Extreme Sports channel on Sky. We started out quite pleasantly on some fairly flat concrete roads chatting away with some of the other guys on the trip (one of them went over the handle bars trying to do a jump over a hole in the road, smashed her head on the ground and had to be taken back to her hotel in a van....oops). When we left the road we started to bike down little dirt tracks through the mountains. I couldnt really work out why the tracks had boulders and rocks in the middle and a nice sandy terrain on either side though. Then i found out. Since its wet season at the moment in SE Asia, it tends to rain once or twice throughout the day, and when it does, it rains hard. The tracks quickly turned into gushing rivers but, when you;re halfway up a mountain, there isnt really any turning back. The guides did their best to make out like they weren't worried but behind the smiles i could see feint signs of 'HOLY SHIT'. We were wet, our back packs were soaked through, our shoes were sodden and it wasnt even 1pm, we still had at least two and a half hours to go. Very slowly we made our way down the mountain and back to the bikng centre. We hosed ourselves down and jumped in a tuk tuk back to the hotel (his face lit up at the prospect of having two battered bruised and very wet tourists in the back). Quick bite to eat, shower, change of clothes and then out to the MuayThai boxing match.
I dont think i was really prepared for quite how violent the MuayThai boxing was. Its a sport that is steeped in tradition and each match is prefixed with chanting, singing, music and a sort of trance like dance around the ring by the two fighters. There were eight matches in total culminating in a Thailand vs Holland fight with 10,000 baht (about 3000 pounds) as the prize. The early matches involved boys probably as young as 13 or 14 absolutely tearing into one another, knock outs, falls, big punches and kicks being thrown. I actually felt quite guilty for using it as entertainment but in Thailand its a very noble way to spend your time or make your career and the fighters are very well respected. The prize fight at the end involved a dutch guy twice as tall and twice as wide as his Thai opponent. With the sport originating in Thailand, my money was on the Thai guy and there was a huge amount of expectation within the room that the Thai fellow would easily dispose of his 'foreigner' adversary. It was over in the first round, the weight, reach and height advantage of the dutchman was too much for the Thai to handle. Two enormous flying knees to the head took him down and no sooner had his head had hit the canvas than the crowd started to disperse and head home.
Unfortunatey i spent the next three days in bed in the hotel room with a severe bout of Thai flu likely brought on by an intense mountain biking experience on top of a killer hangover. We left for Bangkok when i felt like i could brave the outside world.
We were told that there was a great litte town just outside Bangkok called Ayuthaya which had been previously the capital of Thailand before the Burmese took over and pushed the Thai lines back to Bangkok. Much of the original Ayuthaya landscape was demolished by the Burmese but lots of ruins from palaces and temples remain that you can walk around and climb on. Also saw lots of elephants who were taking part in a nearby show. So we spent 2 days in Ayuthaya. Great town, lots of history and we enjoyed learning about it and relaxing before the intensity of Bangkok.
Arrived in Bangkok intending to only stay 2 or 3 days before moving through to Cambodia. We actually ended up staying 5 days because its just such an amazing city that we couldnt bring ourselves to leave. The shopping is fantastic, everything from smaller markets to enormous shopping centres. The diversity of the city is incredible too, some areas show huge prosperity while others show huge poverty. The backpacker area glows with activity 24/7 with neon lights, market stalls, people hassling you to by a suit and anything else you can dream of. If you like the hustle and bustle of city life you cant help but fall in love with Bangkok. We met up with a friend and visited some of the more seedy areas on one night (seedy but touristy), we chatted to ladyboys who seemed very keen to show us everything they had, went to a 'ping pong' show, drank lots of Singha beers and generally had alot of fun in Bangkok.
We also had a day in the Bangkok Arts and Culture Museum, which conveniently sat right next to one of the biggest shopping malls in Bangkok (made it easy for me to persuade Tash to head in that direction). Great museum with lots of contemporary art, sculpture and an interesting interior design with a spiral platform snaking its way up the middle.
When we booked our bus to Cambodia we were well and truly ready to leave. Absolutely exhausted by the bright lights and energy of Bangkok
Books: Finished Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murukami. His style is very different (perhaps because it was a translation from an original Japanese text) but i really enjoyed the stories of girls, booze, university life and love. Lots of debate in the CJNB household about what the ending implies. Have now started 'Voices from S-21' about the school used by the Khmer Rouge to interrogate and torture their enemies. Also just started The Great Gatsby and A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.
Moment when a career change passed before the eyes of Tash: As we were walking out of one of the go-go bars in Bangkok where girls shuffle around the stage with numbers stuck to their tops, one guy who was sat on his own watched Tash walk all the way from he back and as she approached, reached out for her hand and beckoned her to sit down next to him for a drink. Although the 2000 baht was attractive, she declined the offer.
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