Weeks Fourteen and Fifteen

Well where to start. The wedding of Prince Harry and Megan went well and was well received all around the globe. This memorable occasion was almost matched by the mighty Blues beating Mourinho’s United 1 – 0 in the FA cup Final. Now don’t get me wrong, we have had problems this year at Chelsea and are far from the best we could be with the players available to us, but we managed to beat united fair and square. Sadly Mourinho could not live with that and had to moan and groan about how the best team lost etc. etc. Well Jose we loved you whilst you were with us but finally your wining became too much for us and I for one, was happy to see you go, and I suspect many united fans will be feeling like that about now! Rant over.
What have we been up to; well first thing is trying to cope with the heat. We knew it was the most uncomfortable time of year here with temperatures around 37 most days and with the monsoon winds just arriving and bringing with them loads of heavy rain the humidity is

through the roof. We are plodding along best we can but it is too hot and muggy for us. We have managed to hire a motorbike and use that to get around on and it affords us a little breeze and so relief from the heat. I have become a health tourist, having gone to the hospital and had a lump removed from my back. It was a good service – made an appointment on a Sunday and by Monday lunchtime I had seen a doctor and had the procedure completed under a local anesthetic, back in a week for the stitches out. Pretty cool I thought.
Its Dorian season, and its everywhere. Dorian, for the uninitiated, is a large spiked fruit with custard like inside and so smelly it’s not allowed in any public building or transport! Having never had any of it before, I thought I must try it out. I managed to get a sample from a trader and can say with some certainty it is an acquired taste. Some call it a custard fruit, I personally consider it more like a pus fruit, it

tastes disgusting. This makes it even harder to understand its price, in a country where you can buy just about any fruit for pennies, a Kg of mangoes for example is around 40p, a Dorian costs around £10 for one. Now it is a big fruit weighing around 2 Kg each but £10 over here is a fortune, but there are queues for the stuff, bizarre.
During the days we have split out time between visiting apartments for longer term rentals and sightseeing. So far we have been to the walking market in the old walled city. This is a traditional market selling food and hand made arts and craft products as well as paintings. A much more pleasant experiences than the endless markets selling cheap clothing that you get at the beach resorts. The whole town is more laid back and the sellers do not harass you to make a purchase, which is refreshing. That said it is off season at the moment and this place is still swarming with the combination of tourists and locals, much more busy than we anticipated.
We have also visited the Mae Sa waterfall in the jungle some 20 miles north of the city. That was much more refreshing and so much more relaxing and quiet. It was not the biggest waterfall you will see but you could swim in its waters and generally imbibe the gentle jungle atmosphere. On the same trip we visited a local insect

emporium. This showed us just what is making all the noise in the jungle and introduced us to the many creatures that are all around but you can never see. Such as the leaf plant and some serious ‘stick insects’. We saw and held some of the less dangerous tarantula spiders as well as seeing (in cages) some of their more dangerous cousins. Wendy held a scorpion, which was brave as well as the spiders and a few lizards; it was a real fun afternoon.
As we enter the second week of our stay in Chiang Mai we have to face the reality that despite all the looking forward to and planning of this adventure Chiang Mai, might not be the place for us. It clearly has many virtues and the people are very special – never seen kinder anywhere. The thing is we must be going soft. Whilst looking for apartments we have found many around £300 to £500 per month, which is very cheap, but they just don’t offer the comfort levels we have become accustomed to. OK for youngsters but we need a little

more, and the thing is a little more costs a LOT more. For good comfort levels you end up paying close to British prices. Add to that the fact that it is too busy to hire a car and motorbikes are dangerous to use and Wendy can’t ride one so longer term she would be dependant on public transport. Everything factored in we have decided Thailand, we love you for holidays but not for longer term living, a sad but honest conclusion we came to. It seems we will continue our travels with more emphasis on Australia, we shall see.
That said we still had a great time in and around Chiang Mai. We visited the city gates and walked around the ancient walls (dating from 12th century), we then lunched with the ex pats wives at a nice local restaurant on the river Ping. They were good fun but apparently a bunch of lushes! Next we were off to the nearby, but under visited, Huay Tung Tao lake. This was only really visited by locals so the amenities were basic, but it was refreshingly quiet, relaxed and native. There were buffolos wallowing in water / mud, hundreds of huts to take your picnic in and a cool breeze (well almost cool) to relax in.
The next day it was off to hospital and stitches out, my back healed well and without any signs of infection, I was very pleased with the treatment I got.
In the last couple of days in Chiang Mai a strange thing happened, Wendy and I stumbled across a vegan restaurant, we sampled their food and ended up visiting it on consecutive days until we moved on. Very oddly we enjoyed a breakfast, lunch and a dinner all without any meat and oddly neither of us missed the meat. To give the restaurant a mention it was called Goodsouls Kitchen, and we will always remember it for introducing us to a marvellous drink called lassi, we loved the banana, they also do the best EVER Khao Soi – if you are ever there you must try it.
Friday saw us move up in the world, metaphorically and literally. We came to Panviman resort, around an hour out of Chiang Mai and up

in the mountains. This is a 5* resort with all the trimmings but also deep in the jungle. The amount of noise is incredible sometimes you can hardly hold a conversation because of the insects! We ind ourselves sitting for hours mesmerised by the sounds and smells – very pleasant – we also can’t believe the amount of different insects we have seen. Our reality is you don’t see too many monkeys, snakes and tigers when in the jungle its loads of insects. We have seen huge blue and yellow butterflies 3 to 4 inches across, loads of different dragonflies which are really colourful then big moths and beetles. Then there is the stillness, how can we be so high up in the hills and mountains and most of the day there is not a breath of wind. This is a really different and lovely place to be.
Our time in Thailand is drawing to a close, it has been a joy and also an education for us both – we will be back to the land of the smiles.