My Chiang Mai

After subjecting ourselves to four week's worth of sun, golden sandy beaches, crystal waters (and at times oil slick brown water, and yes I'm looking at you Samui!) and numerous islands of Southern Thailand we thought it was time to head north and check out Chiang Mai.

Our original plan to shoot up to Bangkok was blown apart as it was pretty cheap to skip that leg for now and head up to get our feet dirty in the second largest Thailand city. We've experienced a mix of ups and downs with charming markets, tours to the mountainous far northern Thailand, being scammed (to add a bit of angry spice to the recipe) and learning to cook amazing food.

We stepped off the plane along with the other 10 passengers of our flight and straight into a taxi for 120 baht to Awana Guesthouse where we laid our heads for the week. A very tidy, neat hotel close to the Thapae Gate at the eastern side of the old city (where all the backpacker digs are) surrounded by the moat once used to protect the city from Burmese invaders, where the city gets its actual name "New walled city".

Our guesthouse is a fantastic port of call in the sense that we're so close to everything that we need to be close to. Not only that but we had cheap accommodation with wonderful friendly hosts and an arctic temperature pool (very slippery - we both completely stacked it when playing silly buggers trying to push each other in - of course ended up in a heap on the floor).

Our first night consisted of gathering our bearings and went venturing to find the talked-about Night Bazaar. We didn't really have any idea where we were going, our maps were failing us! We followed Thapae, the main road out of the old city and then headed south trying to find the Night Bazaar. This took us through some pretty unlit dodgey areas. Funnily enough this was the way to Charlie's authentic English fish 'n' chip shop. Of course there was zero patron eating Charlie's grub so we continued our trek finally to find the Night Bazaar.

The Night Bazaar here is about 10 to 15 different shops repeated for kilometers on end. Fisherman's pants, i-pood tshirts and 'real' rolexes. There are plenty of artists shops who create some amazing copies of anything you present them but all the touts begin to get on your nerves very, very quickly so it was time to get a drink.

We found an arcade of girly/go-go bars in which many Thai ladies (boys) and 'farang' (tourists) were just playing pool, drinking through super-long happy hours and, well, tuning anything that was Thai and looked like a woman. We wanted something a little more different and new just the place - a bar we'd walked past on our earlier travels - the THC bar.

The Tribal Hemp Connection bar strangely enough does not (seriously!) condone the use of drugs in its bar. After walking through what seemed to be a dead bar, we climbed to the third floor roof bar to find a pretty happening little space of Chiang Mai.

We took off our shoes for the first time in Chiang Mai (but definitely not the last) and got cozy on the cushions laid out on the bamboo-laden floor and got ourselves a few drinks. This bar was really the only mentionable drinking hole due to it's unrivalled character - a DJ spinning minimal, funky house, cool Thai bar chicks and plenty of UV lights and cool lighting via christmas lights lining the walls. The prices were a bit steep but worth it considering the atmosphere. After getting a bit pissy and a few mojitos later it was time to hit the sheets and get ready for another day in my Chiang Mai.