Safely installed in Tasmania

Just to let all of you know that we're safely delivered to Teresa, Keith, Hannah and Sarah's house in Hobart - and by now are well fed, bathed, and about ready for bed. 22 hours from Bangkok hotel to West Hobart front door was pretty exhausting - but we did manage to pop in to Sydney for an hour or two. More later!

Chiang Mai Photos (Part Two)

Traditional food

After our day-trip to Mae Wang we took Moodang, Fanta and Pom out for a traditional western healthy dinner: pizza and ice-cream.

Traditional entertainment

Next day, we headed off with Mike to go ice-skating: stymied by the rink being closed for renovation, we bowled instead. Mike won - but Rosa got the prize for true grit, managing to raise her game at the end after about six straight disastrous goes where nothing went right for her.

Our last 24 hours

Then we were into our last 24 hours in Chiang Mai (for now - I think we may have to be back one year for April's Songkran festival, which sounds great). In between final posting, packing and chucking away of things, we hung out with our new Thai and farang friends:

And here are the farangs - the Kavil became a bit of a salon in the evenings by the end of our visit:

Sarah and John (above right), a really nice couple from Wood Green, now have a travel blog of their own - and when Mike Lyth finally gets his wares up on the web we'll link to that too!

Kanjana Restaurant

Just over the road from us was the Kanjana restaurant - delicious cheap food which we ate many times. Here's a quiz question: who chose the food in the photo below as their last Chiang Mai meal? Click the photo to find out!

Time to hit the road

All packed, it was finally time to go.

Kenji, a Japanese traveller, and Kurt from the US, waved us off from the Kavil, and Jarat drove us to the station.

Then it was off to Bangkok, past fields and wats:

Eve saves the day

The journey back south was fine, but we'd made our biggest mistake yet - we'd left our passports in the Kavil's safe. After a little panicking, we remembered that Eve was flying to Bangkok in the morning - we were able to get hold of her in time, and she brought them safely and met us with them the next day - thanks again Eve!

- Mark

Chiang Mai Photos (Part One)

Back at the Kavil

We were glad to return to the Kavil Guest House - away from the over-touristed bit of the Andaman coast we'd been on, and away from the heat (for the first day or two, anyway)

Fanta and Moodang, above, are the children of Nui and Jerat, who work at the Kavil for Eve, the owner.

Round Town

Many Chang Mai mornings, Heather and I got up as early as we could manage, with the sun not far ahead of us, and walked about the town. It's a nice place to stroll around - the city centre is surrounded by a square moat, marking where the city walls used to stand. Inside this, there are wats, dogs, markets and little streets to look at.

To the east of the town centre, through the Tae Pai Gate, there's a Night Bazaar every night - the most farang-filled place we came across in Chiang Mai. It does have loads of stalls, and a food court with live entertainment:

We liked the Sunday Night Market better - also big, but just round the corner from our place and with a much wider range of punters. We went back to it three times during this visit to Chiang Mai (Rosa wrote before about our first visit when we were up here with Diane).

Chiang Mai Zoo

Although it's always sad seeing big animals in any kind of enclosure, this zoo wasn't bad - big enough that there was a hop-on-hop-off bus to take us all around it. Best of all were the pandas, in their temperature and humidity controlled enclosure:

Invited to Mae Wang

After a long time of feeling pretty separated from Thais by our tourist status (and the amount of tourism that goes on), we were taken under Nui and Jerat's wings over our last weekend at the Kavil. They invited us out to their place in Mae Wang, thirty or forty kilometres from the city, to eat and go bamboo rafting with them, and some brothers and friends of theirs.

- Mark