The Next Stepping Stone

What shall we do today?(yesterday)

A semi regular cafe customer recently remarked on a common question from friends back 'home', "so, what do you do all day in Chiang Mai?" We agreed that often the answer is that you are busy doing nothing.

Chiang Mai is a place where you can be as busy as you like or a wonderfully relaxing place to do nothing.

after running around market shopping, booking flights, etc., Boon and I decided to take some time out to do Nothing.

so we went to one of our favourite places for a quiet sit with a coffee, Kad Suan Kao, Central Shopping Plaza.

In the centre of the Plaza is a grassed openair haven and next to tyhe 1st floor exit to this haven is a food and drink stall where we got ice coffee for 15 baht each and went out to sit at a table on the terrace overlooking the grassed area.

 

We had our usual bickering session on the way;

'wear your helmet'

'dont put it on now, pull over first'

 

and when we arrived

 

'I want a Riubics cube'

"did you bring any money?'

'i need a notebook for my website work'

'i've got loads of notebooks at home'

'but we're not at home now are we.'

 

 

So Ive got my notebook, which i used immediately to jot this down on, and Boon has just got back from a fruitless second hand book search, to tell me that i smoke too much...of course hes right.

wow...long time

i had some major problems with my computer.....well actually they weren't so major but for a computer ignoramus like me......

anyway....back online proper now and with assistance.

If you are visiting www.travel-and-life-in-thailand.co.uk please be aware that the site is under reconstruction. this is being done live and theres alot to do so please bare with us.

The business has been doing well enough. Past our first year now and quite happy with leading up to the next high season. will do my best to keep everything much more up to date.

Our rooms are now available here at The Brick Road Cafe in Chiang_Mai. If you are looking for a clean, tidy room, with a nice view at a budget price, then look no further. All our rooms are newly furnished and spacious. Chiang_Mai is a great place to stay and your choice of rooms is vast. We are English / Thai run and offer a friendly atmosphere and great restaurant facilities.

Please note that our other site, www.travel-and-life-in-thailand.co.uk is experiencing technical problems at the moment but should be back online very soon. Thankyou for your patience.

Book your room here in Chiang_mai now. We only have 6 rooms so get in quick.

SO NOW AT LONG LAST OUR ROOMS ARE OPEN AND AVAILABLE.  Woops didnt mean to shout. we already have our first customer booked in for a month.

now its the work of letting people know we are here.

we have had a booking for song kran week today, online, which was nice. check out the rooms in the latest photo album. the only one that doesnt appear is room 4 because its occupied , i'll get photo in future, but its another balcony room double and is 200 baht a night. the electrician has been today and started running the cable tv to every room.

we aslo got our new street sign showing photos of the rooms which looks very good and i'll get a photo of that tomorrow.

it was lovely waking up to the peace of our lakeside bungalow near Chom Thong. determined to make the most of our last day we got on the road again by 9.30am. we headed up towards Doi Inthanon, bearing off to the left to Mae Klang Waterfall. Here there is a large parking area and food stalls , with covered dining areas next to the stream from the waterfall, before you actually enter National Park. we grabbed some breakfast there. but then headed back round to the Doi Inthanon National Park entrance and paid , once again 200 baht for me, 40 baht for Boon. This allows you access to anywhere in the Park apart from the summit and Temple, full access costs 400 baht.
we were basically on the waterfall hunt and and got to see to spectacular falls....Siriphon and Wararaitcha, hope i've got those names right.
The first, Siriphon was a look only one, with no access to the water, just a viewing platform.
Wararaitcha, was even more spectacular and you could find a spot to sit at the watersedge at the bottom of the waterfall, a little downstream, and even take a dip if you were brave or stupid enough to endure the cold water and strong currents. Of course we are very stupid and went in to cool off, great fun!
But after the stunning beauty of it all , what we realy wanted was to chill out for a while and get some prolonged water play somewhere a little less intimidating. and for that it was back down to Mae Klang where we spent a very nice afternoon, much of it in the water , along with many many thai and a few other farang.
we left there at 5pm and were back at the cafe for the sunday market by 6.30pm.
sundays costs.
fuel..100 baht
breakfast..125
National Park ..240
lunch.....320
total.....785

total trip costs....for two people...7,720 baht all in.