And so it begins...

Day 1

I arrived in Chiang Mai after a surprisingly pleasant (but sleep deprived) 13-14 hour flight. David (Office Manager) picked me up at the airport, and we went for some breakfast with his family – which was nice. After settling in to my guesthouse, which is peaceful, clean and cheap (I don’t think there is anyone else staying here!)…I decided to ‘stroll’ into town, this ‘stroll’ ended up lasting around 2 hours (I definitely didn’t get lost/go round in circles) and resulted in a sunburnt neck! Needless to say, I quite enjoyed it, within minutes, I couldn’t ignore the glorious smell of food anymore, so I picked a busy looking restaurant and ordered my first Pad Thai! I inadvertently walked ‘The Saturday walking street’ on a Sunday during this jaunt…I doubt that counts as a tick on my bucket list though!

I had agreed to meet David and his family for dinner, so I hailed down a ‘tuk-tuk’ to carry me home…I got mildly concerned, when it headed off in a completely different direction to which I expected, but I figured, ‘he probably knows Chiang Mai a little better than me’…after about 5 minutes of heading North, he stopped and said he didn’t know where he was going and hadn’t heard of the place (I had shown him the guesthouse’s business card)…after 10mins on the phone, he decided he did know where it was and we finally got back in time for my dinner appointment.

Day 2

After a nice night’s sleep (my first in over 24hours), it was time to go to the office for my induction (I travelled in style on the back of a moped!), the office is based in an old lepers colony/missionary, and there is a skin hospital, retirement home and many other businesses based there. I met the office staff, using this as the perfect opportunity to impress them with  my ‘sawadee’ and ‘wai’ (the traditional Thai greeting)…the office consists of; David, Stefan (Project manager), Pe (Accountant), Wanida and Noi (Office admin) – all of them were nice and welcoming. Ralf, the director/owner of Rain Tree Foundation was away on business (this had been communicated to me prior to my arrival), so after brief introductions and talking about the organisation with David, we went out for lunch.

I then had some free time, so decided to attack my ‘bucket list’, I decided it was too late in the day to attempt Doi Suthep (a large hill which overlooks the City), so I headed for the ‘Old City’ and Wat Phra Sing…which took longer find than I thought it would (I definitely didn’t get lost/go round in circles), the Wat (Temple) is one of the main attractions in the city, and the buildings are surrounded by some pleasant gardens (See photos!). I then decided to head to the Ping river, before heading back into the Night Bazaar (another tick!)…which was just getting busy, and where I will return to buy gifts at a later date! I was feeling hungry by this point, and decided to risk a busy street stall for a Pad Thai…it was amazing (I still have the taste in my mouth as I write this!).

So, now all I had to do was get home, right? Once again no easy task! After my ‘tuk-tuk’ experience, I decided to play it safe and get a licensed Taxi, but, the same result…he had noooo idea where it was, but he made some phone calls and finally decided he could get me there. I departed from my usual ‘cab driver chat’ for this ride, and had a nice conversation with Mr. Saringkarn Nogoon…or Bobby (his English name), it turns out whilst at University he used to fight in Muay Thai competitions, and had 21 fights, winning 16 of them and losing 3…I didn’t correct him on his maths, as my current kick boxing record is F 1 W 0 L1!!

So, Two days in, I think I’m slowly adjusting to Thai life and customs, which is slower than the UK, but also more cheerful and relaxed! I’m looking forward to getting properly started tomorrow, and seeing what I can do to help. I also think that once I am a bit more settled, I will move to a guest house in Chiang Mai, so I can relax and mingle in the city more.