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