Greetings from Chiang Mai!

The little boys started the evening.

A peptalk and a pray to Buddha before the match.

The red one won.

One of the temples in the old city.

The trench surrounding the old city.

A local cable guy.

It's all about the right rice!

A fresh food market.

Greetings from Chiang Mai, the northern capital of Thailand! It took us almost 12 hours altogether to get here, out of which 9 hrs was spent to the actual bus ride. The timetable that we got from the lady at the travel agency was not quite accurate, but a 3-hour gap is more than ok. The bus ride would have been comfortable enough if only they had not played those movies during the way (2 action films, one local comedy and then some soft-porn in the evening). It was not even about the movies, but the volume was turned on so loud that not even the earplugs helped to avoid hearing all the sound effects. Anyway, we had a lovely "flight attendant" who took care of us all the way to Chiang Mai. HE was wearing more make-up than I ever do and at some point HE changed his pants into a miniskirt.

We stayed at the B.M.P Guesthouse the first two nights in Chiang Mai. This was the accomodation the lady at the travel agency booked for us and it was the worst place we have stayed in so far. The room was ok but the overall image of the guesthouse was unclean and shabby. What is more, we paid 500baht/night and there are several nicer and a lot cheaper guesthouses right in the center of the city. Now we are staying in a guesthouse called the Green Oasis which is owned by a German man. The location is excellent, the rooms are not too hot even without A/C and internet is included. We pay 250baht (around 6,5€) per night here.

Chiang Mai is definitely a lot more peaceful and unstressful than Bangkok. The climate is also more comfortable and the air seems so fresh after the busy and pollutant capital city. The price level here is lower than in the south of Thailand, it is easy to walk around the city and people speak surprisingly good English. Nevertheless, it somehow feels like as if you were in the Canary Islands. There is quite a lot of tourists here but still it is not too busy and crowded, who knows how long it will stay that way.

We went to a thai-boxing match on Monday evening. It was a lot more positive experience than I expected. It was more about the show, betting and funny music than about kicking one's ass and swollen faces. The air was full of excitement, sweat and mystique. The music they played during each match was accelerating towards the end of each round so it was easy to get excited about the match and the general atmosphere.

We will stay here in the north side of Thailand until we start heading to the south in the beginning of next week. The plan is to visit Chiang Rai before continuing with our journey. We have three more weeks to go so we have plenty of time left before going back to snowy Finland. Greetings to everybody! :)