In the last blog I was talking about the markets And organised anarchy. The market sets up on the pavement so that you can not see the shop fronts from the road and walking space is dramatically limited and yet all concerned seem to arrive at a peaceful conclusion.
Chiang Mai has been an experience and a half. On day one Rosemarie left her phone on a sofa in the lobby. When she returned 10 minutes later the phone had gone. Result pandemonium, hotel staff were searched and later their lockers were too. our room was searched by security before the hotel arranged for us to go to phone shop to buy another phone.
This did not prove easy and it took three attempts to fins a shop that sold phones and SIM cards and which had an assistant who spoke good enough English to understand our predicament. We eventually purchased anew phone.
Yesterday we toured three ancient sites in Chiang Mai and felt really special as it was just the two of us and a guide. The guide was excellent and gave us agood history of the city and region. In the afternoon we rested and in the evening had an excellent Thai meal in a restaurant recommended by our guide.
We have been a little perturbed by the large number of single mature if not elderly males here who have younger Thai escorts and noted on our walk this morning several stickers on phone boxes stating that girls are not for sale.
Chiang Mai is a centre of tourism and there are hundreds of massage parlours and genies arranging trips. It seems odd to us that you could want to go and visit a "traditional" hill tribe as though they were animals in the zoo and we have not been able to bring ourselves to do it.
Tomorrow we move to southern Thailand to the beach for a slightly more relaxing time.