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I woke up at 10am to the fan seemingly on overdrive. Down the road was a noodle bar that I popped into for breakfast whilst Laura was still dosing. I must of been half a sleep but it was eerily quiet on the streets, like a ghost town. I suspected like yesterday everyone was hungover and it would likely kick off again later.
I returned to Laura who I welcomed back to the land of the living. We spent the morning chatting, reading our novels and deciding what our next moves would be. We were quite keen on the elephant camps which were very popular in this part of Thailand. Laura was very particular about finding a reputable one as you hear a lot of stories about some groups seriously mistreating the elephants. We learnt that the good companies came with a price, sometimes extremely expensive, so we would have to mull over the idea. For lunch we grabbed a pot noodle each from 7 eleven and decided to wait until the afternoon heat passed before venturing into the town.
At approximately 4:30pm we headed for a walk around the moat and was amazed how different Chiang Mai was. It had a peacefulness and calmness to it. A far cry from the chaos of the festival yesterday and the day before. As the sun set there were some beautiful scenes of the sun reflecting off the moat with the mountains providing a stunning backdrop. Although it was slightly ruined by the jumbos taking off from the airport 2km down the road but I guess you can't have everything. We headed into the depths of the old city which used to be surrounded by a wall and moat. The moat remains but only small sections of the wall are still left intact. The interior of the old city is littered with small walkways filled with guesthouses, cafes, restaurants and little boutique shops. We stopped at a hostel/cafe which sold very cheap fruit shakes as we both felt quite dehydrated. Laura's ice coffee was nice but was practically all ice so was only two mouthfuls. In Thailand you need the emphasise, 'little ice' if you are buying a drinking which is ice based! By this point the sun had set and we came back out on the eastern side of the old city. We struggled to find a cheap eat so we walked back to the cafe from where brought the shakes. I had fried rice and Laura a green curry which was pretty good. They didn't charge us for the extra rice either which a nice little bonus.
On the way back to the hotel we bumped into the French couple who we met in Bangkok, who had returned from their day trip. They explained it was a hit and miss affair, mostly because the guides threw stones at the elephants to make them do stuff. This proved to us how you need to be careful who you book these elephant activities with! They did say the waterfall and bamboo rafting was fun, but it was the elephants that put the prices up. Unfortunately they also explained money had been stolen from their room whilst they were on the day trip. The room was locked and their was no signs of forced entry. We found this very alarming as we were staying at the same guesthouse. They hypothesised it must have been someone who worked there who had a key. It was funny how they had booked the tour with the guesthouse who obviously knew they would be out for the day. It was very annoying for them and we sympathised and suggested they should say something to the owners.
We parted ways and headed back to the guesthouse to check our stuff, luckily nothing was missing. The room was roasting and it takes a while with the window open and fan on to cool down. Oh how you miss air conditioning after having it for a while. I know you shouldn't get used to it as you do not acclimatise as easily but it gives you that little relief from the heat when you need it! We then wished my cousin, Virginia, a happy birthday but knew she would likely be at work so FaceTime was out of the question. We decided to try out the pool in the hotel next door to us tomorrow as it would a nice way to relax! It all depended how much they would try to rip us off to use it......
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