I love Chiang Mai for many reasons, it also is a very familiar place. People come here to die, to find themselves, to let their hair down and some embrace the idea of the hippie lifestyle and some even turn feral.

A new traveller has arrived, the Chinese traveller and I cannot imagine what runs through their brains when they see the freedom and chaos that is Chiang Mai. Their society for the most part is very ordered, although things are changing as we all know, but when you see some of the fresh Chinese faces it can be amusing.

The selfie culture is very strong in China and everywhere you go at the moment you see many Chinese in the usual dozen poses and positions that must happen so that you can post them on the Moments pages within Wechat, which is similar to Facebook. These poses are practised and perfected over time until they become perfectly natural and this is a sign of a seasoned traveller.

All these “natural” poses can take quite some time to master of course and it can be quite funny watching the process. Posting your life on Moments or Facebook is for many their life, I too have been guilty of posting a picture or story or two but I don’t prepare the shot to make myself look fantastic…. I don’t need too😊

What I like about the Chinese is that many of them are fashion tragic’s anyway and you can spot them quite easily when you travel, but in Chiang Mai some have embraced the local style and they just don’t look that comfortable within themselves, in fact they have the same look as some of the old westerners that come here and do the same, mind you they look way more ridiculous.

I’d like to turn feral but I don’t think my self esteem would let me, I have to admire some of these old folks. I saw one lovely old couple yesterday that looked as if they had been together forever and they were maybe in their late 70’s or early 80’s and they had on their hippy clothes and were shuffling around but the difference was is that they looked very comfortable, they were not trying to look cool….. they were cool.

This is what I mean about many of the people you see on your travels, some are cool, very cool and they are out there but then you get the ones that are trying so hard to be someone that that will never be and it can look so sad and a little bit funny at the same time. But you know it keeps me amused and both my mother and I used to often “pass remark” on what we saw stroll by.

Overlooking Chiang Mai there is the temple of Doi Suthep. The road up to the temple winds its way up the mountain until you reach the entrance and then you have to climb over a hundred steps to finally reach your destination.

Yesterday however I decided to walk to the temple which stands at a height of around 600m by using the old monk trail. It’s tough going and it’s up all the way with almost no flat sections to give you a breather. It is also very hot and humid which adds to the difficulty, but it was by far the best way to get there.

The view from the top is great because you can see for miles and miles, especially on a clear day like today. I didn’t visit the temple this time but instead had lunch and coffee before I contemplated the journey down. I opted to take a local taxi, ten of us crammed into the back sitting on bench seats. The journey down the hill was not enjoyable and after a few minutes being driven by a lunatic I wished I had just walked back down even although I was feeling tired.

It’s about four hours on the bus and possibly longer due to the amount of roadworks. I’ve driven this road many times but it’s a bit more of a challenge if you are in a bus or truck. There is major changes being made along the way.

The bus was quite comfortable and even had reclining seats, although mine would slowly rise back up to the normal seating position every time we went over a bump. I obviously wasn’t smart enough to be able to lock it in place.

I’m now in the Black Canyon cafe and it’s after 5.30pm, which is usually my cut off time for coffee but I have not had a good coffee in days and this morning’s instant coffee was just bearable.

After here I’ll go to the Sunday Market which is huge in Chiang Mai and I wanted to be here for it in case I see something which takes me fancy and if I do I might even take her home 😊

I kept the scooter that I had rented for another half a day and went out early to the white temple and then from there I headed to the national park where I went to have a look at the Khun Korn Forest Park Waterfall which had a 70m drop and is about 1500 m into the forest from where you have to park.

I had my sun sleeve things on instead of wearing a jacket, a bandana thing covering my neck and tucked inside my shirt, hat and gloves. All this is designed to keep the sun off me when I’m on the bike but I wore it into the forest because the mosquitoes were a plenty, although not very big but annoying all the same.

It was a pleasant walk but it would have been good if I could have found a longer trek nearby, most of the good trekking here is a little bit further out. Mind you I was feeling tired as I had not slept very well in days. There are some giants here, the trees, the bamboo and what looks like banana trees, quite spectacular.

I returned the scooter just after 3pm and picked up my luggage from the hotel and then walked about 700 m to my new hotel for tonight, it’s very close to the bus station and yet it is on a very quiet soi and so I’m hoping I can get a good sleep.

When I checked in that’s exactly what I did, a snooze for an hour before going for a wander on my last night in Chiang Rai. I came across a large street market and bought Jackfruit and a chicken kebab. The market was busy and after about an hour I headed for home via the night bazaar and bought myself a local bill tribe jacket.

The noisiest thing at the new hotel was a pesky cricket but I was very happy to listen to him singing as I slowly drifted off to sleep.

This morning I went to visit the white temple once more, it always looks great especially when the sun in shining.

The golden building is the best looking toilet I have ever seen.

A few years ago the temple got damaged in an earthquake but thankfully the damage was only superficial. When you come to Thailand it is easy to get templed out because they all begin to look the same, but in Chiang Rai the Blue and the White temples are certainly worth coming to for a look. I have visited the white temple a few times but it’s always nice to see it again.

Yesterday I got pulled by the Polis but as soon as I raised the lid of me helmet and he saw the old foreign face looking back at him he sent me on my way. 😊

I’ve had this effect on many people over the years.

I went to the Blue Temple and so had everybody else,

On the way there I passed another temple of a very different colour and there was almost no one here at all.

This was an amazing place, an amazing collection of art much of it using animal bones and skins. There are so many different pieces of art to look at that it would take quite a lot of time to describe and so I will let the pictures do the talking. But if you have time do a search for the Black House in Chiang Rai.

I had to go to the loo while I was here and they have a unique way of getting you to the right side of the building.

Mind you there were a two odd looking characters standing outside this small souvenir shop.

I landed in Chiang Rai just after one o’clock and got the local bus into the city centre within a few hundred metres of my hotel. My hotel is down a small side street near the golden clock tower but alas once again my choice of location is not good. The noise from the road is just too much. The hotel come hostel is comfortable but I just can’t get a good night’s sleep with this amount of noise. I’m used to sleeping in a very quiet environment.

The clock tower chimes every hour but that’s not a problem as the noise it makes is rather pleasant, but the noise of the tuk tuks and motorbikes and of course there just happens to be a bar not far away that will play all your eighties hits well into the wee hours.

At this time of the year Thailand is very popular and so the accommodation is booked pretty quick and of course the prices are high. I was trying to keep to a budget for this trip but I think in the future I will have to rethink the way I choose a place to stay. I feel that it is more unlikely that the reviews are honest.

The reviews very rarely mention the traffic noise but instead focus on how comfortable the bed was or how friendly the staff were and the location was perfect but I think that like many things in life they turn out to be fake. Fake reviews written because the host was friendly and you don’t want to say anything bad because even although you want to speak the truth you lie on the reviews and then someone like myself reads it.

In China with Airbnb I know that the host and guest will often discuss the review and agree they will say that each other was fantastic. This generates more money for the host and maybe the guest will receive a small discount. I often dismiss reviews that I read when the reviewer comes from America or Australia or the Middle Eastern countries because often their expectations are too high, instead I am more likely to trust a review from a New Zealander or a Canadian, but maybe these guys are falling foul of the fakery.

Anyway I went for a wander around the place, visited the night market, had some very delicious beef and vegetable curry and on the way home I went for a foot massage which was even more delicious than the curry. After my trek the other day my feet were in need of some R&R.

Today I’ll go to a few local temples and then to a small cafe that serves local coffee and that’s about it for today. Tomorrow I’ll leave this hotel for another one close to the bus station where I’ll get the bus to Chiang Mai later. I hope that the new place will be quieter because it’s difficult to function if you don’t get a good night’s sleep.

At the airport waiting for my flight to Bangkok where I’ll pick up another flight to Chiang Rai. For those of you that don’t know where that is, we’ll it’s in the north of the country and I’ve been here before but I want to go to a couple of temples that I haven’t been to and then I’ll head to Chiang Mai in a few days.

The weather should be a little bit cooler which will be good because I want to do some more hiking. Krabi had been hot and humid even although it’s winter and so it doesn’t take long to be a bucket of sweat, mind you I had the motorbike and so after about ten minutes my clothes were dry except for me arse.

I didn’t sleep well last night due to three loud and drunken Polish guests. They made so much noise and didn’t really care about anyone else. There was an English guy with them that I had spoken to a couple of times. First time I saw him was 7.30am and he was waiting for them to unlock the fridge so that he could have his first beer of the day. He was a tall lanky tragic looking character who was growing a forehead and he had extensions in the little rat tail that hung from the back of his skull, he said he was an English teacher…….aye right!

He told me last night that him and his wife had stayed here for three days and he had only left the hotel once and the rest of the time he has been drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. What a sad way to live your life, mind you if you had seen his wife you would have turned to the drink too.

So I got up at 4am to get ready for the bus and so now I’m at the gate waiting for my fight and the air conditioning is cranked up to, or down to I should say, to cold max. The seasoned travellers have jackets and extra layers but there are so many that are wearing very little and are slowly freezing too death.