Late afternoon visits to the markets were often our only outing for the day.  The Sunday walking market was almost identical in wares to the Saturday walking market, held within the old city rather than just outside and they also had some quite upmarket  goods for sale dotted amongst some amazing artwork that I would have loved to get.  The streets are closed to vehicular traffic for these two markets so it was a real pedestrian area.

There is also the night bazaar operating everynight – just stalls along the footpath with the usual Asian gimmicky goods and t-shirts and we have walked through here a couple of times too, always ending at the roti stand to buy some honey roti for desert.

On our last night in Chiang Mai we went to the Flower market for a closer look as we had driven through it each night on the way back to our apartment and only caught glimpses from the back of the tuk-tuk.  The wholesale flower market known as Ton Lamyai supplies most of Thailand with fresh cut flowers and runs along the Ping River close to the Chiang Mai city centre. The market is open 24 hours a day but is best visited at night when the thousands of freshly cut blooms have just been delivered off the trucks. The vivid displays of colour were amazing with hundreds of roses, chrysanthemums, lilies, birds of paradise and orchids in every conceivable shade. Ladies sit at their stalls threading flowers onto string or making other wonderful flower arrangements.

Bunches of roses were wrapped in newspaper and stacked up, the blooms showing outward. Even though we were leaving the next day at midday, after enquiring of the price for a bunch of fifty roses and being quoted 60baht or $2- how could I resist?!  So David got out his wallet and bought me a bunch of  long stemmed roses – when would we ever be able to afford that at home? Alas, I couldn’t take them with me when we left the next morning…. so I hope the cleaning lady liked them too.

After really enjoying our stay in Chiang Mai we thought we had better get a move on toward the Laos border so took the ‘Green bus’ (in name only) three hours north to Chiang Rai.   We had contacted Nok from the Bamboo Nest, a guesthouse around 25km from Chiang Rai only the day before and organised her to collect us from the bus station. We decided that after staying two weeks in the metropolis of Chiang Mai a change of scenery with a more rural outlook was in order.

Also waiting at the bus stop in Chiang Rai for the same guesthouse was an older couple who had called Mackay home up until 4 years ago when they moved to Melbourne. Sue worked in real estate in Mackay and was born in Sarina whilst Nigel, formally from Zimbabwe has lived in Australia for some time and has experience in growing almost everything.  He was especially interested in the tea and coffee plantations around the mountains here as well as rice and sugarcane, crops he had grown in Zimbabwe.  We enjoyed chatting with them over drinks and dinner in the open air dining room, as we have not had many opportunities to share conversation with fellow travellers since being on the road.

The views from the guesthouse were nothing less than amazing and exactly what we were after. We could watch the clouds settle on the tops of the lush green mountains before lifting and being able to see for miles across them and beyond.

We had the family bungalow which was the largest of the individual little houses on stilts.  Everything was
crudely crafted from timber with bamboo mat flooring.  The beds were draped in mozzie nets and for the first time since Bangkok the girls had their own beds and even their own room.

Family rooms have not been that common where we stay and up until now most of the rooms we have got have been triples – one larger king/queen bed and one single bed that the girls have shared.  It is fortunate the girls can share a bed – if they were any older it would probably mean two rooms, doubling our accommodation expense, not doable on our budget.

The Bamboo nest was quite a climb up the mountain and the last 1.5km was  pretty steep passing through a small village.  The road from the village to the guesthouse had been cut out of the mountain by hand by the villagers and it was just barely wide enough for the 4WD. Nok is your typical Thai highlander; small and petite in stature not, much bigger than Phoebe. She handled the Toyota Hilux superbly to make it up the track very slowly in first gear and low range.  As it looked like rain the first night, Nok then took the car back down to the village and left it there overnight so she would be able to get into town the next day. Her husband Noy is also quite a character. He is also small in stature and is the guesthouse handyman. Noy is a nice guy but a bit of a rat-bag with a soft spot for his own home brews, and he often spends his evenings at the local village drinking and betting on rhino beetle fights. His prized rhino beetle is proudly on display in the dining room, latched to a piece of sugar cane being hyped-up for the next fight.

It did rain quite steadily all night. As we were a long way out of town, there were none of the usual sounds we had got used to, instead replaced by the sounds of nature. Even Immi said as I kissed her goodnight “Mum, can you tell those bugs to be quiet”

The next day, we walked the 1.5km down the hill determined to reach the hot springs that we had passed on the way up. Once we reached the flat road and the river there were a couple of local guys fishing, motorbikes parked by the road.  I asked them (or drew on my hand hot springs) and pointed the way and wrote ’20B’ so they understood and nodded. With a rider and two passengers on each of the two bikes they took us the 3km up the road to the thermal springs. It was just like being in Rotorua – the smell of sulphur was strong and the local ladies were selling bamboo baskets of eggs which could be cooked in the 87 degree water as it bubbled to the surface.  We got changed into our togs and went into the swimming thermal pool commenting how much nicer it would be if it had been the middle of winter and not the 26 degrees or so it was.

We stopped for lunch at a local café then  started back on our 4.5km return trek. We had been walking for about 10 minutes or so when Nok came up behind us in the 4WD returning from her daily shopping trip to Chang Rai. We couldn’t have been happier to see her and got a lift all the way back up the mountain. The girls breathed a sigh of relief – time to toughen them up I think.

Phoebe and Immi especially loved the fact that there were at last some healthy looking pets to be able to pat after being told so far to leave all animals alone….  It was a great few days away from everything – no electricity (only solar), so this was a great excuse to ban all electronic devices for a few days too.