"It could have been worse, you could have no legs and been beaten up by a girl..."

Twas a pleasant surprise meeting a fellow Irish person for our journey up to Chiang Mai. Clare, a Mayo lassie was travelling with Sean her boyfriend from Engerlund. Pascal, a gent of a Frenchman was sitting across from them and we all hit it off immediately. B and Clare were waffling away while me, Sean and Pascal rambled on about random nonsense you just can't talk to girls about. Taking into account we were both half rubbered to begin the train trip, it made it a lot easier to say yes when the beer lady came around. Chang after Chang went down and it wasn't long before Mr. Security guard is telling us to keep it down, it's after 2 in the morning, it seemed like about an hour yet it was a good 6.

I don't remember getting to bed but I wake the next morning, the girls are laughing away and it's piercing my skull. Sean and Clare have booked into a Guest House called "The Junior House" and are getting picked up by one of the staff. They tell me, B and Pascal to join them. The guy picking them up is called Jeff, and what an absolute hero he is. 5 of us, rucksacks and all arrive to his 5 seater Mitsubishi. He's so nice he tells us all to just get in. It's a tad cramped, just a tad, we've obviously been around a bit so we're used to this mode of transport, even if it is concentration camp-esque. 

Junior House is absolute gold. Every member of staff are over the top nice, not in a "give me some money" kind of nice, but would crack a beer and sit beside you chatting away. They gave us a 20 minute run around of the city and where to go, where not to go and to book anything through them as they wouldn't charge the surcharge  that most places do. Heroes.

We set ourselves up, shower and go out for a stroll and find a place to eat. The food is tops, some sort of spicy chicken and pork with the traditional rice and ice tea. There's apparently an awful lot to do in Chiang Mai yet we're on a tight schedule. 4 days is the max we can spend as after this we're travelling up north into the unknown country of Laos. We didn't really have a strict schedule and it constantly changed but all we needed to do was be in Khao Lak for Christmas. It's around the 28th November during our time in CM. Elephant trekking and general sight seeing are the "musts" here. There's a beautiful temple on top of a mountain that overlooks the whole of CM, so it's planned that we'll do this tomorrow.

Disaster strikes.

In the 2 months we'd been away B's stomach was like a washing machine, she was constantly spewing, it became an inside joke for us, but hey, that's Asia for you. I had been perfect really except for a brief spell in Cavite and Alona, mostly coz I had eaten too much though I'd say. But now I had fallen victim. I'm blaming the pad thai and spring rolls I ate that morning in Bangkok. Rough as sandpaper I am, so B goes out with the others general sight seeing while I keep the toilet company for the morning, afternoon and evening. Hitting the mountain view was put on ice 'til the following day. We also booked the elephant trekking for the day after, CM was quickly becoming a nice chill out zone and despite the fact I was throwing up every half hour, I was loving it.

Next installment is about bad haircuts, Woody and his sisters and near death experiences...

Take care!