Thursday 27th April
Got up at 3.45am (Dan got up later as is quick to get ready) and left the hostel at 4.30. Hailed a passing taxi (although he had some trouble understanding where we wanted to go) and went to Mo Chit bus station.
During the bus journey when we had nearly reached Chiang Mai, a policeman came on to search the bus, looking for someone.
Arrived after 11hour bus journey and got a pick up truck taxi to our hostel (not prebooked). We stayed at At Baahn Khan 2 as recommended by someone we met in our dorm in Bangkok. Stayed on the 5 bed dorm. Only had one other person in it, a French lady.
Went to the food court at the central mall for dinner.
Friday 28th April
Had delicious museli with yoghurt and fruit for breakfast and Dan had omelette.
Had a look around the city and went to a temple that had some very sexist policies that really wound me up.
We worked out which high ropes adventure to book. The ones in the leaftllets had bad reviews regarding safety. I asked the lady at reception for advice about one and she said 'don't do, many people die'. She recommended another company for good safety. There was the choice of Phoenix adventures or Flight of the Eagle, both run by same company. Eagle was more ziplines and absailing and Phoenix was more assault course so we decided on that and booked it for the next morning.
Had dinner at a place where the food was nice but cockroaches were running around the table.
Saturday 29th April
Woke up with mosquito bites on my face, mostly around my eye. I hadn't put repellant on my face as thought it would irritate it. Started to after today though. I also had some bad Ines on the back of my right hand.
Got up for the first Phoenix adventure of the day. Had trouble persuading the hostel staff to give us breakfast at 7am even though they had said the previous day that this would be fine (as we needed to be ready for pick up at 8am). When I went to order they said not before 8am. I had a shower and then came back to ask again and they made us omlette as had no muesli. The omlwtte was really nice and came with toast and fried broccoli and carrots.
Picked up at 8.30 by minivan, everyone else on board was going to the eagle flight so we had the Phoenix place to ourselves which was really nice. We got a locker for our stuff and then got our safety gear on. There was a harness, the most comfortable I've ever worn, helmet with hairnet under and gloves. He even fave us a bumbag to use later so I could take my phone up with me for photos. We had a good safety and practice briefing before starting the smaller course. The safety was great, the place was designed so you couldn't detach from the safety line unless you took your harness off or had finished the course. The instructor came with us on the smaller course. After a short break we did the larger and more challenging course and he folowed us from the ground and let us know when we could do each zipline. One of then was a bit too difficult and came off! Once we had finished we had a lovely lunch that was included and got our free t-shirts.
We came back and had a shower and then went to the massage station outside of the central mall. We both got the back, neck and shoulder massage (also included arm and hand) for 30 minutes each and it only cost about £3.80 total. It was the best massage we had ever had, and a little painful. We decided to try the full Thai massage next time we get one.
For dinner we went to the Saturday market, one of the biggest markets in the world. At 7pm the national anthem came on over the speakers and everyone stopped and stood for it. We had lots of lovely food. We had corn on the cob cooked of a BBQ, passion fruit juice with the seeds in, deep fried onion and pumpkin, banana waffle with chocolate sauce and mango sticky rice.
Sunday 30th April
Hailed one of the converted pick up truck taxis to get to the bus station. The price was a bit over the top and he wouldn't negotiate so we said no and hailed another one. This one was better but still more than we paid doing the same journey in reverse so we bartered to a compromise. When we got there he pretended he had no change to try to get us to pay his original price. Dan did have the right change though so he didn't have any luck with his scam. (We paid 30 baht each on the way and he wanted 50 each but we had agreed on 40 before getting in).
When we got to the bus station Dan noticed that the mosquito bites on my had had got really bad and a red line had spread from one of them in both directions, looking like it was following a vein. Worried about infection and decided to Google it when we got there!
Got some rice crispy cake/cracker things for the journey/lunch.
Got the bus. It was nice and comfy (it was the 1st class bus (there was also 2nd class and VIP)) and had quite a few soldiers travelling on it. It look 3-4 hours to reach Chiang Rai. The loo was hard to use as nothing to hold on to!
