Chiang Mai - Part 1

When I first arrived in the hostel, I was a bit dubious, because it was hard to find and in a very residential area, but since I've been here about 9 days, it's obviously grown on me! Actually it's the best hostel I've ever stayed in, great craic but I'll get to all that! Just remember, if you ever come to Chiang Mai, stay in the Spicy Thai!

In fairness though, within ten minutes of arriving in the place I was sat outside chatting to an Irish fella who's been living in Singapore for the last two years.

I crashed for awhile, but later on, me, this guy (named Peter), Clara from Sweden, Tansey from England and Aziz from Quebec all went out for lunch, just coz. Afterward, me and Pete, Clara and Tansey headed for the swimming pool in the local hotel, which was awesome, because I'd gotten quite used to jumping in the pool in Bangkok to escape the heat, though it isn't as bad up here as down there (Chiang Mai is in the North, in case I didn't mention).

We left after the rain started bucketing down, which it had been threatening to do all afternoon. There's a certain irony to getting out of a swimming pool because it's starting to rain, but who the fuck asked you anyway! :-)

Later on that night, I watched Juno with Tansey until other people joined us, and then a few of us knocked out to a local pub for a few pints. There was me, Pete, an English guy who moonlights as a cocaine dealer while working as a magician, and Kevin, and 18 year old American fella from Chicago, who'd never been outside the states until he got to South Korea, on his way to Thailand! I'd love to say he's brave, but he might just be crazy. I'm still not convinced he totally gets that things could go wrong, but that's just me. Nice lad though. He stuck with me and Mat and Dave for awhile, but that comes later.

That night was just a few beers and then back home.

Peter and the Magician guy headed off the next morning, with two others, bound for Laos. In some ways, it was a bit of a relief, because I got the sense that that scene could have turned a bit ugly under the wrong circumstances.

The next day was a bit bigger, because for a lot of people it was the last day. The two Australian girls, Jess and Zoe had come back from a trek and I ran into them drinking outside in the afternoon, whereupon I joined them, along with Kenny, the guitar playing Swede, and Kevin and then just anyone and everyone who moseyed on past. We actually managed to drink all the beer in the hostel that night, though they did suspiciously "find" another case the next day.

We went out that night to Warm Up, a local night spot, although we did accidently leave Kevin behind - oops - but it's a bit crappy and impossible to get seats in so eventually we left and went to Monkey bar, where Jess managed to charm a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label off some old Italian men, and then we drank it, and then we drank some more and then some more. Kenny, followed by Mike, sang Ronan Keating, accompanied by the band that was playing, much to my eternal amusement. A Swede and a Canadian singing that song with a Thai band, sure why not!

Later we moved into the rock bar part of the club, and eventually ended up listening to a Thai band rocking the Strokes, which resulted in us getting thrown out of the bar when the two Aussie girls, Kenny and Mike decided to get up on stage and help them along. Technically I didn't get thrown out, because no one really noticed me being as I'm stealthy but I left with them anyway.

We hit up Mike's burger, which is basically supermacs in Thailand, and I assume the food was awful, but at the time it tasted like a King's feast, since it was two in the morning and I was pissed!!! Eventually we made it back to the hotel, managed to find our beds and get some sleep.

But the next morning, I did really want to kill those two girls, I felt awful! Following Johnnie Walker with cheap as fuck Thai rum = bad plan apparently! I did start to perk up after me and Kenny went to get some food. He was pretty wrecked too.

Later on that afternoon, the aforementioned Mat and Dave finally managed to show up. About 20mins later, give or take, I'd managed to convince them to go on a two day trek the following day, but that will be covered in a seperate post.

That night, the Spicy lads took us out to the regular Sunday market, which was pretty decent, although we didn't really buy anything, except food. Good food though. They did have a bb gun shooting range though, and a challenge was begun. We agreed that the losers would basically have to fetch drinks for the winners all night long, as in lowest would get them for the next highest, who would get them for the winner.

I won.

Apparently, all those camping trips spent shooting eggs and toilet roll has actually achieved something! HA!! Bet no one saw that coming. (And yes, it is nice to live in a land where winning a shooting competition for beer-getting slaves counts as an achievement).

Afterwards, we found a taxi, although it took forever to get in it because Mike was waiting for a txt from some Swedish girl and didn't know what he wanted to do. When a bunch of Thai lads stopped at the 7-11 we were outside of, and one of them dropped his knuckleduster by accident, we decided it was probably time for us to be moving along and we left him behind.

Then it was bed, because the big trek was the next day! Excited much!!!

Tune in next time, same Shane-time, same Shane channel . . .

I really need to think of some better sign offs, don't I?