North Thailand

We quite Cambodia the 23 Mai, so we get a visa for Thailand until the 25th of June.

We arrive late in the night in Bangkok, after a day of buses to get there from Cambodia. The day after we took a night train -12 hours- to end up in ChiangMai, the second biggest city in Thailand, which is really charming. The centre is surrounded by a canal and pieces of wall (probably a protection from the early day's).

The city is surrounded by mountains, and the air is more breathable compared to Bangkok! There are a lot of nice places to shop, like the huge night bazaar and the massive Sunday walking street/market (the number one until now!). On the last there are a lot of temples open in the night, andthey are impressive to see with a fabulous game of light.

We found a really good place to stay, "Bordeaux cafe". Here we rented a big studio with fridge, tv, huge couch, and a big bed, for 350 bath per night (=4eu)! We stayed in this town for around a week.

The next stop was Pai, north west of Chiang mai, a little village at 500 m high in a valley, surrounded by mountains. It is a hippy place, a mecca for artists, musicians and travelers!! This explains the laid back atmosphere, and makes it a place where you got stuck... And that's exactly what happenedto us, with 4 unforgettable weeks in Pai!!

Like on the island we rented a mopped to move around. The more longer we stayed, the more people we met; the more interesting it got, we became part of the village life...

For the 29th birthday of Kris, the 9 June, we rent a luxeus bungalow in a beautifulplace "Aqua" with swimming pool in the middle of a tropical garden (thanks Aleide!!).

We saw the game France(1) vs Holland(4) in a pub at 1h30 in the night, together with other foreigners. French are the big losers, and Kris andnew French friend had to drink their sadness away, and later puge it away... A good night, hehe...

We did a few tracks in this beautifull area.

There was a canyon, where we walked by our self.

We did a 2 day track with a tour, and stayed overnight in a hill tribe village in the mountains. We passed a lot of rice fields, learned about the nature, saw no animals at all, and crossed the river a million times...

We made a good (french)friend Thomas, and also his monkey Piak. With him and the monkey we did 2 tracks. The first was on a peak of 1723m high. There was no path and we just went straight up; behaving like Piak, who was walking free with us. It was a steep and heavy walk, and Joske had it hard sometimes... But as 2ndgirl ever on top, it was worth the trouble. The view we had on top was breath taking...

The 2nd track was 3 hours walking along a river, and crossing it again a million times, to reach a huge, beautiful waterfall.

The 25th June our visa was expired, so we went in Myanmar for a "run visa". That means we crossed the border, and we had exactly 1 hour to spend in Myanmar, before crossing the border back to Thailand. In Myanmar everything is 10 times cheaper than Thailand and all is a copy, imported from China. It's amazing!

At one and a half hour north from Chiang Mai (where we had to be for the border crossing) we visited The Elephant Nature Park. Here -as the only place in Thailand almost- the elephants are totally free without a chain... We feed and bath them here, and watched how they are if they can walk... It was a nice experience!

After this we returned in Paifor a week, made a few walks, did yoga, played with the monkey, and had relax time.

After this we went to Bangkok -again-, for a day shopping in probably the biggest market in Asia, something awesome, and all very cheap...

And now, for the last week we spent our time in KoChang Island, towards the Cambodian border. It's a little paradise (big actually, the 2nd biggest island of Thailand) where we finish our holiday before the flight back on 20th of July.

So see most of you very soon!!! Greets from Thailand...