Chiang Mai, Thailand
Chiang Mai Part 1-
I arrived in chiang mai around 8am after my sleeper train, feeling very ready for the day ahead. had a cheeky 7-11 for breakfast and made my way to the hostel. I arrived there and dropped my bags off and went to kill a few hours before i could check in. i went for a wander around the old town and found a nice place to eat. scouted out a few events/ excursions i could do as well. after a few hours i went to check in the hostel. my first impression of the hostel was good, they offered pretty much everything you could do there for a very good price, the staff were super helpful and encouraging. for the first few hours in the hostel i thought it was quite quiet as there was many people in the common areas. in my head i thought “god i’m not gonna meet anyone here”. later in the day i saw the hostel was doing a great deal to go watch a muay thai fight that evening with ringside tickets for like £15 which i thought was a steal. i signed myself up for it which im so glad i did as loads of people from the hostel also signed up for it and got to meet loads of people. i got chatting to a group of english lads who were all around 27-30ish and they were chill but we didn’t have a great deal in common. after waiting and chatting for a bit we all got into a taxi to the event. when we got there i went around a few of the bars with this guy called jack and played connect 4 against loads of thai people before the fights started. afterwards we went to find some seats and sat next to a few rlly sound people geoffrey, jerusha and nina (first of many “ina’s” to come). the fights were so fun mostly thai people but quite a few tourists in the mix as well. the third fight was amazing, it was a 120kg weight class with this huge american called greg who we all cheered for. after the fights a small group of us from the hostel all decided to go to a couple bars and continue the night. we went to this bar square with the infamous zoe in yellow club and had a boogie and found ourselves in a karaoke club afterwards. at the place geoffrey bumped into 2 guys dan and joe who he met in koh tao and they joined us for the night. they were both sound and the kind of people i would be friends with back home which was nice as i hadn’t met that kind of person yet on my travels. after a few more clubs and pubs we went home and one of the girls we were, amy, with convinced us to sign up to the sticky waterfall the next day which i was hesitant to do as it was an early wake up but did so none the less.
Day 2
started the day off with going to the sticky waterfall with geoffrey, amy and a girl amy had met in her dorms, lina (already starting to confuse me). the sticky waterfalls were super fun but also very sketchy. the idea of it is a waterfall that you can walk up, i’m assuming they would clean the algae. most of it was pretty easy walking up but towards the top it got super slippery and would’ve hurt a lot if you fell, luckily they had a rope you would cling on to and we made it up safely. after this we got the taxi back to the hostel and had a bit of down time. in the evening we went out to get dinner and shop around the markets and this is where two new guys joined us darrell and miriam. we shopped around a bit and then i realised i needed to get to a bar to watch the mighty palace. luckily we were a stones throw away from an irish bar with about 7 tellys all showing premier league. i sat at a table near the palace telly and had my first draft beer of the trip which was delightful. after sitting down the guy on the table next to me turned around and we started chatting. he was from shanghai, china but was a huge arsenal / football fan and we were chatting for ages about it. he was a super cool guy who had some rlly good and niche football knowledge, knowing players like wilfred bony and johan cabaye. also to add he was drinking a pint of guiness… on the rocks which i thought was strange but he seemed to of ordered it like that so im not one to judge. spent the whole game with him and convinced him to support palace. afterwards i went and found the gang as they weren’t too interested in the palace brighton game (didn’t know that was possible) and they had gone to a jazz bar. i turned up there and it was amazing, really good musicians and great vibe. good mix of tourists and locals which was good. had a great little boogie there and went back the hostel for a snooze.
Day 3
we were discussing the night before going to a water park which i was very keen on. so in the morning we booked with the hostel to go there and it was again very reasonable price and super helpful in getting it booked. in my head i was assuming slides, rubber tubes and a lazy river but when we got there it was like a total wipeout course. it was insane, so many jumps and obstacles and the complete disregard for health and safety really added to the experience. we spent the day like little kids just playing in the water and jumping off things and we had a blast. the highlight of it was sitting in the water with a bunch of english guys, cheering on this class of thai children playing gladiator with the giant inflatable bats. on this trip as well we went with 3 new faces, daniel, really cool and fun american. nina, another “ina” who is also german and an english guy called flynn who was 18 just finished school and was solo travelling, he was fun to talk to coz he had obviously just had a 4 month piss up as any 18 year old would do. we also managed to bump into joe and dan after this which was a fun coincidence and we all made a plan to travel to pai together. after this we all went back and were very tired. when we got back we started booking our transport to pai. half of the gang wanted to drive a moped up there however there was no way i was gonna do that with 0 bike experience and over 700 turns on the way. so the rest of us booked the minivan up there which was like £5 for a 4 hour journey. we also booked private rooms in a hostel so we could have a little bit of luxury and as we were with people it worked out the same price as the dorm. got it all booked and went to bed.
Day 4 woke up nice and early and waved off the bikers - geoffrey, dan, joe, miriam, darrell, nina and jerusha. the rest of us on the van was me, amy and lina. popped an imodium (a pill that slows your bowels) and set off, the journey was a lot better than the stories i’ve heard, very very twisty roads but all fun in the end. arrived in pai around 5ish, 5 mins after the bikers who left 3 hours before lol. however the reason was is they had a crash on the way with two of the bikes (super glad i didn’t even consider getting on the back of one). on the way it began to rain and the bikers pulled over and decided to take it really slow until the roads dried up however even though they were going super slow, dan and joes bike lost traction and the back wheel slide under and crashed into geoffrey’s bike causing them both to fall off. luckily it was bad at all and one of the guys with them darrell is a doctor back in the states and rushed to their aid and checked them all out to make sure they were all good. dan was the only one with cuts and grazes and got bandaged up by darrell. they all made it to pai in one piece qnd so our pai trip begins