More dentists and more night markets in Chiang Mai....

We've now been in chiang Mai for 8 days, the longest we have been anywhere since the start of the trip. We obviously would have moved sooner if it wasn't for the massive inconvenience of having my wisdom tooth removed.

The past few days, since my operation on Friday really, have been incredibly quiet. The pain at times, has been excruciating, far worse than I was expecting! Shell, bless her, has tried hard not to become disillusioned with our time here through four days of me not wanting to do anything but curl up into a little ball. We have managed to go out, walk around the now very familiar streets and try to keep ourselves occupied as much as possible. It's just quite hard when at least one of us is just bloody fed up.

The op itself was ok, apart from the bit when he told me he would have to chisel the tooth into four pieces to get it out as it had partly grown into the adjacent tooth. Apart from the noises and a horrible feeling in my lower jaw as he yanked it out, all was ok, done in 45 minutes. The problem began as soon as I left the building. Pain so bad I wanted to cry, and shell could see this, so we both rushed back to the room.

For the past few days I've eaten nothing but soup, porridge and the occasional Thai curry. To be fair to chiang Mai, those three items are sold everywhere as it surely has to lay claim to be being the vegetarian and health food capital of the world. We've obviously visited a lot of places by now but here, amongst the kinds of people that frequent and own the establishment's here, it's the nearest we have got to being back home in sunny Southsea.

It's something we have managed to do in abundance, to glide effortlessly from restaurant to coffee shop, bar to street cafe, making the most of the free wifi to plan our next few months. This is fine, but usually this kind of thing is interspersed with activities, sightseeing and things do to, stories to accumulate to tell you on here! Unfortunately we have none of that today...

Saturday, to add to the heady mix of painkilling medication and alcohol, was the anniversary of Ady's death, five years to be precise. It's my mum and dad I feel most for during this time, as I have never really had the chance to spend this time with them since his death. So being in Asia, on a hotel roof, drinking beer looking at the mountains, a certain amount of melancholy started to grip me. Of wishing he was back home, insanely jealous of his little brothers whereabouts or actively planning to come and join us. Either way, I just hope he was with us in sprit. If not, then I demand to know where else he would have been!

One of the cool things about staying a little longer here is that it is the King's birthday here on Monday. Normally, as in the UK, this would mean a celebratory coin or box of shortbreads, as an extravagance they might even fly the flag at half mast. Here, the admiration for their Monarch reaches infatuated levels. The entire population have images of the king adorning their walls at home and in the case of this weekend, have images so big of their beloved leader that they make Stalin look like a car salesman. See photo above...

The celebrations for the Kings birthday started some days before with crackles of fireworks heard right across the city, much like chavvies setting off rockets at the end of October back home. On Sunday, the night before the big day, the Sunday walking street returned so we walked the streets for a while, bought another couple of items then once again, headed back home in pain.

Although today went in much the same fashion as the previous days, we did have our first massages of the trip. Shell opted for the back, shoulder, neck and head massage and I went in for the traditional Thai. Although the room and the setting were unbelievably relaxing, my Thai massage was, minus the small polite thai masseuse, what I would expect to happen in say..Guantanamo Bay, or maybe medieval London. She stretched, pummelled and smacked me around for an hour while shell, looking like a scene from a spa brochure, looked a picture of serenity. I have to be honest and say I can't feel a great deal different other than the fact I now know about twelve more areas around my body that will hurt if you press it really hard...

So, stitches out tomorrow! Then we finally get to do our Thai cooking class on Wednesday then fly south to Phuket and the Thai islands on Thursday.

We are both really looking forward to some sun, sand and sea after a few weeks inland but it's December! Where are the grey, frosty mornings and annoying supermarket Christmas carols??

Much love, Tommo xx

Night markets and dentists in Chiang Mai...

Flights scare me, especially ones that are powered by propeller and which are too short to pop Valium. Fortunately for us the flight to Chiang Mai passed as quick as a breeze, despite a fair amount of wobbliness as we came into land. Amazingly, as we passed through immigration, the owner of our new guesthouse was waiting with a big sign that read 'mr tom' in massive letters. The guy was a legend and drove us to the guesthouse, all for free, where we were welcomed like family and shown to our room, a really big and spotless space, all for £6 per night. Back downstairs we were told we could stay as long as we wanted and that we would just have to tell them the day before we wanted to move on. At this point I think we made the fundamental decision that after around 3-4 weeks of constant travelling, pretty much every day, we would like to stay put in one area for a while. From speaking to our hosts we have a lot to see and do here so I think we could easily spend a couple of weeks here and in the surrounding countryside.

That night, as lucky as it may seem, was Chiang Mai's most famous event, the Sunday walking Market. Apparently, people come from all over Thailand to stroll around the markets and as such, were told by our hosts that we were lucky to have this as our introduction to Thailand. I don't believe in luck but I'm glad we came today! The markets were phenomenal, we bought a few little bits (to add to the hoard we need to ship home) and stopped every now and again to feast on red pork curry, Chiang Mai sausage, spring rolls and tiny Japanese pancakes filled with blueberry filling. Needless to say, we were in our element. It's funny that out of the people we have met travelling so far, no one seems to have food right at the pinnacle of importance as much as us. Food has been and will continue to be the best thing about our trip and up to yet, Asia has done nothing but astound us with it's variety and quality.

Anyway, we spent hours walking through the markets, occasionally getting stuck in the maelstrom of people until we got back to the hotel, shattered, at 11pm.

The following day we made our way out of the hotel to find breakfast before the daily onslaught of wats and temples. Chiang mai's old city, where we were based, has numerous temples, almost one on every corner. We spent the entire afternoon visiting some beautifully ornate buildings that if were at the start of your trip, would be staggeringly beautiful. This being the third month now of visiting Buddhist monasteries, you'd be forgiven for feeling the opening pangs of temple fatigue. Unfortunately my day would be completely and momentously overawed by pain. Having got yet more antibiotics and painkillers to try out from the chemist, we were hoping for an end to the pain. It would get worse.

The next morning we found an extraordinary place to eat breakfast that made their own brown bread rolls. To say they were good is as big an understatement as you are likely come across. The rest of the breakfast, big fluffy omelettes, were also exceptional, as was the several coffees. We stayed for hours in this place, writing, making lists and making good use of the wifi to plan our next movements. As time progressed through the day the pain in my mouth was making me dizzy so we decided to see out a dentist, at long last. The dentist was ultra clean, with the best facilities imaginable so put my mind to ease for a little while. Basically the dentist told me, after x-ray, that I have no infection but that my wisdom tooth is growing diagonally against my back tooth. He told me that it needed to come out. So there you go, I will bite the bullet and pay around fifty pounds for the operation but I hope at the end of it I will be pain free once and for all.

From there we took a red-taxi-pick up truck over to central plaza, the big city mall, to try and find some relatively cheap running shoes so that I can hit the streets. We couldn't find any trainers but what we did come away with was two awesome haircuts!! We were both amazingly pleased after getting two haircuts for a tenner that were better than anything that we would have got back home, we should have never have been worried!!

Back in town we had another hankering for Italian so found an amazing little eatery that we had read about and shared the veggie and beef lasagne's, again, absolutely fantastic food and completely homemade. I will never get bored of describing food so If it all sounds a tad repetitive then I apologise!

The next morning, after visiting our favourite place for breakfast, we caught a tuk-tuk to Chiang Mai zoo, a zoo so large that it actually let cars in, so people could effectively drive from the Otter enclosure to say, the lesser spotted Peruvian Tapier...or something like that. The zoo, although a bit rough round the edges, was pretty amazing. Amongst all the usuals we saw a White lion, 2 agile lemurs that looked like a couple of mischievous brummies. We were also lucky enough to see three giant pandas who were brilliant. They were just totally content with stripping pieces of wood and eating a tonne of bamboo. They looked like the happiest creatures we have ever seen. I think shell may have fallen in love with them. I have competition. Anyway, we spent most of the day in this place, mesmerised by the sheer quantity of animals and the impressive view of the city below us as we were now relatively high up the surrounding mountains.

Heading back into town we decided to walk to the night bazaar, a nightly extravaganza of Market stalls, all with the western wallet firmly in mind. Although out of the old city, which is a blessing in itself, the night Market area is the type of south east Asia you hate seeing; mcdonalds, Starbucks, subways all were in place but search a little further and you can find these little nuts and crannies of authenticity, such as the food courts. For three pounds we ate four dishes of fresh northern Thai food before heading off back towards our hotel. On the way back we managed to stumble upon a place doing margarita's for 55 baht so decided to take advantage of that for a while too, one constant holiday...

The next morning and knowing that the following day would be taken up by dentistry we decided hire a scooter. After some initial wobbles and horrified looks from the hotel owner, we were on our way. Chiang Mai is surrounded by mountains to the north of which one of them, Dui suthep, has a temple sat at the top. It also has two minority villages that you can visit.

The roads are fantastic leading up the mountain. We had an absolute blast as we rode up, overtaking all the struggling cars until we reached the temple at the top. It was an incredible ride which took about 2 hours. The temple itself was astonishing, it was encrusted with thick gold and had practising monks in every corner, all with the heavy aroma of incense that burned from the altars. The views from the top were out of this world, almost as if you had been placed on a cloud above the city. From there we headed further into the mountains to check out a minority village. The village itself was pretty dissapointing as the inhabitants had firmly taken consumerism to heart. Almost every inch of an otherwise peaceful and remote village had been taken up with the selling of items. The big selling point though, in fact scrap that, the vastly underused reason for people visiting the village was the huge winter garden that lit up the surrounding landscape with a hundred different types of flower, dad you would love it!

From there we jumped back on the motorbike and swerved our way through through the 6kms of hairpin bends and dirt tracks to another tribal village. This time, in a very secluded spot, the village seemed much more insular than the last. As we drove around, a chap in full traditional gear shouted at us as we rode past so we quickly made our way out of the village and back on to the mountain track to take us the 30kms back to chiang Mai. About 5kms in we pulled up to small coffee shop, sat astride an adjoining coffee plantation, and had two unbelievable cups of the freshest coffee you can imagine, all while looking down on a great view of coffee plants, banana trees and green fields. If the ride to the top was fun enough then the rude back was out of this world. I cannot wait to do it again.

As we got back into town the traffic was atrocious, thousands of cars and bikes all stood in a huge, choking jam. We did as the Thai do and wriggled our way through the traffic until we finally made it back to the guesthouse just before dark. An amazing day and one we will not forget in a while!

Due to tomorrows operation to chop out my wisdom tooth it looks as though we will be here for a while longer yet, not least since I have to go back to have the stitches out next week. You what though, I think were both secretly happy. We both felt like we needed a pit stop of sorts and we have it here. Chiang Mai is phenomenal, the people are great, the bars and restaurants of mindblowing quality and the surrounding countryside mesmerising. A week has nearly gone by here and we haven't a clue where it has gone!!

Much love, as always, Tommo xx