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We had heard lots of good things about Chiang Mai and initially didn't think we would have enough time to make it all the way up here. but we found ourselves up here and staying for 4 days. Chaing Mai was different from what I expected. I thought it would be very similar to Bangkok and just a little bit quieter, but it is a lot quieter. We spent the first day getting our bearings and seeing what the city had to offer. There are a lot of Wats (temples)and there are views of big mountains all around. Chaing Mai is the place people come to as a base, to do treks and activities in the mountains. There are lots of rafting, mountain biking and trekking trips on offer. Its also a little bit cooler up here which was nice! They have a huge night Bazaar, with loads of stalls selling traditional clothing, cool pictures, you name it they've got it on a stall somewhere, I even saw hats made out of old aluminium cans! There are loads of good bars and restaurants. We used Chaing Mai as a nice place to relax after our busy journey from south to north. Chris really wanted to go mountain biking, however me not really being the mountain biking type decided to stay behind and treat myself to a facial instead. It was amazing, I've never had one before, but now I want one every week (I wish), it was so relaxing and my skin felt so nice, until I left and returned to the busy streets and started sweating again! Ah well. There are loads of spa salons here and massage places and its a lot cheaper compared to back home. Chris had a great time mountain biking and picked up a few injuries (non-serious) when he flew off his bike over the handle bars, but he loved it! I also paid a visit to wat PhraSing as I'm actually not fed up of seeing temples yet even though we have been to a fair few. It was worth the visit, and I got a few snaps, so I'll get them uploaded. We have finally found out why all the Thais wear yellow T-Shirts. I guessed they wore them out of support of the King as they have the Kings emblem on them. It's actually the Kings 60th anniversary as monarch and the King was born on a Monday and in Thailand every day has a colour, and Mondays colour is yellow. So the Thais wear the T-Shirt every Monday as a mark of celebration for the Kings anniversary. We have managed to pick up a bit more Thai since being here, and have been helped a lot by the Thai people. We were initially using phrases from the Lonely planet but have found (since getting blank stares from local people) that a lot in this book is wrong, for starters no-one says "Khaw-bin" for "bill please", for anyone coming to Thailand its "Cheque-Bin" or "Khep-tang", and a few other things were wrong as well. We both wish we had got a few lessons before coming.
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