Chiang Mai New Years Eve

A very uncomfortable bus to Chiang Mai that took 12 hours (V.I.P bus me hole!)..of course in the spirit of all things they dropped us 2km short of town, where there was convieiently some tuk tuk's offering there service. We were told that we would be dropped into downtown, but this Canadian guy (who I was talking with before and was a nice guy) lost the head and started shouting at the Thai's and organised a sit-in on the bus, it was quite funny, after 20 minutes I decided to throw in the towel as we wre getting nowhere and pay the $3 to ferry us into town...it wasn't about the money but more of a principal.

We arrived and the accomodation things didn't look good, everywhere full or closed, we found another place that had rooms but it didn't have them until 10am (it was 7am at the time), we wanted a bed then and walked to about 20 guesthouses all were full except one that looked and smelt like a bad prison cell. We headed back to the 10am one hoping that they still had that room, they did so we chilled in a cafe for the next 2 hours in The Peppermint Coffee House, which made the nicest sandwiches ever (and lovely staff). We chatted to the Canadian guy and his Chinese wife for about an hour and she filled my notebook with places to go in China.

When we finally got to bed, I couldn't sleep but the other one had no bother, I managed to get about 2 hours sleep.
We got up and went back to the Peppermint Coffee House, and had great Green Curry and Massaman Curry and some New Years Eve Mojito's! We headed to the river and the sky was littered with hundreds of fire lanterns. I headed the direction of them and saw a woman selling them at the side of the street and bought 2 of them off here and some fireworks as well :D. We sat at the river with a Chang and there was a much better vibe then any pub. We decided to let off Lantern number 1 into the air, a Hawaii guy lent me his lighter and told me to write any worries you want to get rid off..as I'd none it was "Long life and Happiness" for me and "Peace to all" for Tina. A couple of hundred lanterns later we sent number 2 into the air with "Health to My family and a lottery win if your feeling generous" from me! and "I miss you Sooty" from Tina..this wasn't the perfect launch the first attempt fell on Tina's head, the second attempt which I through had enough hot air in it glided into the path of a crowd of people before it headed towards the sky! Bloody Falangs! :D.

Entering 2011 was abit strang as there was no countdown and we only realised when the pontoon of fireworks hit the sky, after which the place was like Dublin at Halloween with some of the most reckless use of fireworks I've every seen, people launching screamers from their hands! It was funny to watch, I set off my packet of Screamer rockets and it was food time, there was food stalls everywhere and by chance we found the nicest pad thai noodles in the world..so good there was a queue of locals for them. We ate our food and enjoyed the festivities, at this stage I've been on buses & boats 24 of the last 48 hours and were starting to feel drained, I think tomorrow will be a rest day, followed by a Thai Cooking class the next day. Plenty of stuff to get through here.