Chiang Mai

Even after 1 week my stomach is playing ball. Sticking something new and weird in every day and it's coming out the other end like it should. Excellent.

Chiang Mai is a breath of fresh air after Bangkok, literally. Only 100,000 people and 300,000 vehicles on the roads. City is enclosed by a giant moat beside which I am staying. This is wonderful because if you get drunk you just have to go in any direction, find moat and follow. Naturally this could mean a detour of about 6km, but hey.

Took a sawngthew (Thai for "Red japanese pick-up truck which squashes lots of people into back to make cash") up the local mountain here to gawk at another Wat (Thai for "temple"). Once you've seen one wat you've seen 'em all, a bit like icons in Russia, but that's another story. This one was rather cute though, sitting at 1000m above the smog of Chiang Mai. Driver took me on to a village where the Hmong hill tribe live. Their main sources of income are:
a) Tourism
b) Poppies
c) Marihuana
With huge big plants just sitting there (pictures to follow). And yeah, they were a most chilled-out tribe... The drive up & down was worth the 2 Euros, better than Disneyland.

Food of the day: Chicken curry with potato and coconut sauce.

Oh and if you are interested, a history of the Hash House Harriers, which Chiang Mai, like any other two horse town around the world, also has.
Off to Pai tomorrow. Mmm. Pai.