48 Hours Short

Chiang Mai. My tour leaders home town. I can tell you everything the city offers, and it is a city too, the second largest in Thailand. During the one day stay (thanks to a stiff necked tour schedule I was deprived of anything more than that), I roamed the old city, went to visit the tigers and elephants, a siverworks factory, a silk weaving factory and an umbrella making factory. And at sunset I went up to the temple to watch monks pray in the evening. I had no interest in Thai courses such as cooking and what a waste of time a massage would have been I mean hello, one night??

Chiang Mai. The home of Thaliand's finest quality handicrafts. The night markets sparkled in my mind. The thought of any night market (or day, for that matter) thrills me. So I was sorely disapointed at only having half an hour or so to stroll the vast expanses before a wild storm blew in and umbrellas began to blow away... or into other stalls and people. The the rain came and it hung around for about two hours. I hung around for about two hours outside a department store. While the streets turned into rivers, I kept nice and dry.

While the streets turned into rivers, I kept nice and dry.

Not until it was too late to hang around any longer, and half the stalls were packed up to go home, did I venture out to paddle through the dark waters of streets-turned-rivers (with God-knows-what in them), back to my hotel.

And thus my adventure to Chiang Mai's feature attraction was thwarted by gadzillions of litres of rain.