Nghi and I spent our first day in Chiang Mai walking around the city and getting set for a trek into the hills of Northern Thailand. We made our debut at the night market that evening -- my numerous subsequent evenings resulted in the purchase of a new suitcase in which to transport all the items I purchased home!
Nghi and I met up with Dave (the Canadian guy I met in Bangkok) after the night market and found a bar that had a Thai band singing very bad renditions of 60s music. It was so entertaining that we couldn't break away which Nghi and I were kicking ourselves for when we got picked up at 7a for our three day trek the next morning!
We had a couple of relaxing days after our trek. I got an excellent hour masage for $8 (and that was on the expensive side!) and visited the handicraft villages and factories where we learned how they make/process silk, hand painted laquer, silver jewerly, the painted umbrellas etc.
We didn't make our travel arrangements back to Bangkok in advance because that is typically not necessary, but we didn't know that it was a national holiday and a three day weekend so when we went to book our flight for the next day all the flights and trains were booked. We NEEDED to get back that Monday because Nghi's flight back to England was Tuesday. So, we spent the day in the Chiang Mai airport trying to get on a flight standby. Finally, after about 5 hours, we got on a flight. That evening we tried to have a nice meal since it was Nghi's last night of his trip (it was hard to find a nice meal in Bangkok though).
The next morning I said good-bye to Nghi and left for Cambodia.
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