Bits and Bobs in Chiang Mai

Rachelle and I wake up late; 11AM and it's the best night's sleep either of us has had since getting to Thailand. We have cold showers and head downstairs. Attached to the guest house is a tourism booking agent. Jeremy advised us to go there for any activities and to quote his name for a good price. We already know what we want to do because Jeremy told us about an adventure day including elephant riding, trekking to a waterfall and river rafting. We book it for 900 Baht each (approximately 20 pounds). We go tomorrow.

The rest of the day is hours. We have some bits and bobs to take care of:

1) Find a cash machine

2) Exchange Rachelle's money into dollars for the visa in Laos.

3) Buy mosquito repellent - it's expensive in Laos

4) find me a hair dresser.

The cash machine and exchanging money is easy enough to do. We find a pharmacy and look for mosquito repellent. In the shop is a Thai lady behind the till and an Australian man is talking to her. He tells us about wipes that repel 'mozzies' and are better because the spray always ends up missing bits. We look around at the different sprays and the Australian asks us what the Government developed substitute drug for heroine is. We consider this a weird question. Rachelle says she thinks it's called methadone. We buy two packs of mosquito repelling wipes and one spray, then leave.

Next on the list is a hair cut for me. My long hair has been really annoying me in the hot weather and I can't take it anymore. After shopping around I see that the best price is 100 Baht, but the places don't look too great. A nice looking place has a Thai woman listening to her iPod. She takes out her headphones and I ask how much for a male hair cut. She says 200 Baht. I begin to walk away when she says, "but I do discou' fo' you... 150 Baht". The place looks nice so I agree. I ask for a short cut, very short by my standards and I worry about how it will look. She takes a lot of care and time, but it's all worth it and I like it. I pay 200 Baht because I think she deserves full price for the work, despite the cooling fan in the place blowing my cut off hair back into my face the whole time. 

With all our tasks done, Rachelle and I walk around Chiang Mai looking for temples. There are some really nice ones, but none as nice as the oldest Chiang Mai temple, which is completely different from the other temples and is huge. In fact, i'd go as far to say that it's magnificent. We are lucky enough to be here whilst there is a festival around the oldest temple lasting seven days. Lots of stalls, young monks and even some entertainment goes on all around the place.   

After we've had enough of the temple we go to a bar before heading back to the hotel.