From the stifling humidity of Bangkok we caught the overnight train for the 700km ride north to Chiang Mai, where we were hit by cool and rainy weather for 3 straight days. 

Complain or just making the most of our time here, well it’s full of tourists from USA, South America, China, Thailand and France and whilst many of them were getting drenched on the elephant rides in the jungle, we took in a couple of the temples on our doorstep and chilled in the many coffee shops.

  
Sunday evening on our doorstep in the Old City was big market time, every stall for about 2km was different with clothing, books, bags, foods, souvenirs and so on….nothing ever repeated. Making our way through the tourist convoys in the rain, snacking on some spicy street foods was aroy aroy as we say in Thai.

  
Finally ducking into a bar across from our guest house where the live band played classic Latino music much to the delight of the South American audience. Somehow we got chatting to Pla and Paco, she is a Thai law student and he is an Espanya Social Worker, studying in Australia. A real down to earth pair making their way through life trying to find meaning in it all, we chatted and chatted until the lights were out and it was time to bid farewell. 

 
So our quiet little stopover in Chiang Mai proved to be another series of lessons for us to learn about ourselves and others. 

Marveling at the many Buddha effigies everywhere and in particular the reclining one just behind our guest house maybe it’s worth coming here again in dryer weather, off to Chiang Khong for our volunteering exploits next, some 600km further north east on the border with Laos.