Things wot we did in Chiang Mai

I'm aware that some of my posts have been very much 'this is where we are and this is how we got here' in content. This is partly because those are some of the most memorable moments, and in some ways most interesting to read (who needs to know when I had a particularly nice/bad cup of coffee? Incidently, I've had both in Chiang Mai - fantastic local coffee, and nescafe).

However, it struck me that we spent a week in Chiang Mai - surely someone must be wondering what the hell we were doing [other than using the pool on our last day]? In short, other than the activity filled day, not a lot really. We did a walking tour of the city, going to all the 'must see' wats, and took a taxi out to doi suthep (a wat on a hill) and out to the one in the forest ( name escapes me), we also went to the night bazaar (market) twice, and the sunday walking street once (for obvious reasons). We ate well, and explored the city...we also had two Thai massages. These might be of some note as I can imagine people having had bad, or good experiences of these. My suspicion is that depends on the masseur (and the day, and how achey you are anyway, etc.) but I'm sure some people's views are tainted. In my opinion they're quite a nice experience. The first one was at a place round the corner from ou first guesthouse, in a very nice room with dimmed light, and raised beds. They get you to put on fisherman pants (loose fitting trousers) and give you free tea (iced thai tea in this case...imagine tea with icing sugarr and ice in and that gives you a fair idea of it) and there was meditation style music playing (although, at the second place this was interupted at one point bizzarely by Leann (is it pretentious to put [sic] next to what a parent has called their child?) Rimes. Although at certain points they press too hard - I do after all have a lot of tendons with little fat covering them on my forearm, and pushing will feel a touch unpleasant, and despite my thought at one point of 'hmm, if her elbow slips now I'm going home without my testicles' I can say it was a very nice experience.

Of the second one I can generally report the same. Carried out/done by a man who looked to be recently out of the monastry it was harder than the first one, and included some different stretches but was generally a very pleasant experience. Perhaps importantly - depending on which moral you wish to take from this story - no fear was induced for my testicles this time, althouhg there was one stretch where I was leaning in to his lap and somewhat feared for his. Oh the life of a masseuse.

Now I'll update the previous post about the journey :p.