After a week exploring new sights, sounds, tastes, smells and toilets of Cambodia and Laos, we finished a truly epic 2023 in the familiar surrounds of Chiang Mai. The first international city we’ve ever visited twice in a calendar year (and same hotel come to that!). Our first night was New Year’s Eve and, thankfully, also the Sunday night markets…because it was Sunday. This made it even more spectacular, as we traversed the 1.1km closed off road, eating our way through markets set up in all the temples, listening to live music in newly discovered bars, ducking as random fireworks were let off next to us, watching in awe as lanterns were released and floated off creating a yellow brick road into the heavens, running for cover as flaming lanterns crashed back to earth or got stuck in overhead powerlines and trees and rang in 2024, Chang in hand, with an amazing (city sponsored) fireworks display, 12 months on from freezing on the banks of the Thames.

To break up the 6 nights we had in Thailand, we organised a “tour guide” to drive us the ~4 hours up to Chiang Rai, to explore a different town and see some of the more recently manufactured sights to suit both spiritual and tourism requirements. On day 1, we saw a giant, white, lady Buddha, a restaurant covered in orchids under a waterfall, what is best described as the MONA of Thailand, the Baan Dam museum or “Black house” and got to see the annual flower show in the heart of town. Despite a misguided walk to the river, we had a great day in Chiang Rai. Stumbling across the best Khao Soi we’ve ever had, hot-potting in the night markets and exploring the bar scene taking in live music, listening to English kids sing along to Don’t Look Back in Anger and watching locals hustle tourists at pool. The only sport than ironically begins with a Thai break.

On the way “home” to Chiang Mai we stopped off to see the mind blowing white and blue temples and were treated to a surprise hike to see some waterfalls. We had zero complaints about the drive and our lovely driver who stayed in Chiang Rai over night to wait for us, however, she really stretched the definition of “guide” in “tour guide” when stopping the car, pointing up a paved road and saying, “you go, waterfalls, I stay, wait.” It was only once we got a little out of sight when we realised this paved road didn’t lead to the falls and saw the rickety sign in the bush highlighting our mile each way adventure we were embarking on…perfect for Lea dressed in her finest modesty ensemble for visiting temples. It was the second sign that probably hit home more, telling us to “beware green viper bites”….I figure, once you have a green viper bite already, it’s probably a tad late to start being wary in a once-bitten-twice-shy type response, so we decided to start being exceedingly wary as James stomped his way thought the jungle (hoping Thai snakes are as scared of stomping as they, apparently, are in Aus). We comforted ourselves with the knowledge of it being “winter”, but simultaneously had the same memory of James’ research the previous day into Thailand having the largest population of wild tigers in SE Asia, although neither of us said anything at the time, just put our heads in the sand and hoped they too would be terrified of a sunburnt engineer stomping through the bush.

Once at the falls it was certainly worth it (although had we not made it, it would have paradoxically certainly not been worth it). A little precarious for Lea in her Church garb to get to the bottom, James and his old ankles ventured forth. The power of the falls was surprising and blew me away. And, having been keen not to leave any human traces along the path in, our bodies went into shut down (ie. no weeing) mode, but it really is true what they say about waterfalls as James set about being ones with nature just as the only other misguides turned up from downstream. A quick, panicked re-adjustment hopefully avoided them seeing their first snake of the day, eyesight dependent of course.

Our last hotel in Chiang Mai gave James the chance of being outsmarted by a toilet. Once you think you’ve got the better of it and all the learning is behind you, the slight (and seemingly randomly changing) delay in selecting the posterior wash function and its delivery can come as quite the shock at first, but gets addictive after a while. Lea was a bit more cautious to use some of the posterior functions, but I told her to give it a crack anyway. Perhaps it was the genius of our hotel toilet, but our recent debates over men leaving the seat up or down when they use a unisex toilet resurfaced. James was under the again, misguided position that ‘up’ was best, so as to covey a sense of “only 1’s delivered by this guy, come on in!” Whereas what Lea had already meant was to leave the cover UP, but seat DOWN, to avoid creating a “oooh I wonder what that guy just did in here?? Why don’t you bend down, grab hold and take a closer look” type situation. A new strategy that back-fired almost immediately (no pun intended). While using the facilities at a bar (1s), James opted for the “cover up” method (contrary to the previous inhabitant, and with some difficulty as I couldn’t quite stand up in there in the first place) only to see the seat covered with, let’s hope, water, but was reminded what the hoses next to the loos are used for and realised what the mix could actually contain, and, with that look you might have on your face right now, exited stage left to be confronted by a line of beautiful, hopeful, young girls about to walk in my watery footsteps. Thus leading to the common three word phrase of, “Lea, next bar”.

We did our final food tour by “rod Daeng”, where we saw more cricket than the rainy SCG that day and got to re-live some of our favourite places from last time (https://europez2a.com/category/b2p/), but for the most part we wandered the street food markets and listened to live music, where they expertly blended in 90’s English pop classics with local music, I don’t know how, but they sure did Thai it together well.

Our adventure concluded with an “all you can chew” flight to Singapore as we dwindled our gum supplies. Despite this being our third trip to Singas, it’s never made it to a blog…. And, after a few overpriced cocktails, we decided now wasn’t the time to sling anything together.