Chiang Mai - the rest (Tim)

After the jump, Rose & Shaun and me & Ryan kinda went our seperate ways and didn't see much of eachother for the rest of our week there. Instead of cooking, we decided that lessons in the art of Thai massage would be put to much better use, so we forked out the dough for a 3-day course and got down to some serious muscle pummelling.
Every morning we were picked up early from our guesthouse by Wassana, our teacher, and taken by bus to her quiet house out in the countryside where for 6 hours a day she turned us (as best she could) into masters of relaxation.

That was what we did during the day in Chiang Mai, but the nights were something else. Accompanied by the volunteers, we explored the bars and clubs of the city, of which there are many on offer. The only downside was that every night seemed to end up with us in Spicey - one of the worst night clubs I've ever been to, ever. It just consists of old Western guys getting together with young Thai girls and by 4am you're usually squashed between all these couples on a tiny dancefloor, left wondering - why? It's the only place that is open until 5am I think was the reason (due to various bribes), and at this time when the club closed and the sky outside was beginning to brighten, we'd head to the food shop next door to get a plate of Paddthai (a noodle dish equivical to kebab in England).

So that would be the ruoutine - get up at 7am for massage school, go out until 5am, get to bed at 6am and then get up an hour later to do it all over again. The 30 minute bus journey on the way to Wassana's house and the 30 minute break at lunch whilst she prepared food was often the best sleep we got all day. The actual massaging was pretty hard work since you really have to press, squeeze, twist and contort each muscle as you go through the steps which often left Ryan and I quite hot and sweaty. Not the most romantic form of massage at all.


After a week in Chiang Mai, we decided it was time to move on and explore some of the more northern villages, near the Burmese border, accompanied by Rose and 3 other volunteers (Charlotte, Liv and Carly). We spent a fairly uneventful night in Meh Hong Sorn, a quiet town in a mountainous region. After all the massaging of the past week, we felt we deserved to receive a proper one so went for an oil massage in the evening which, we found out, gets quite a lot closer than normal Thai massage. It's quite a surprise, we agreed, when lying on your front to have your boxers pulled back and have your bare buttocks kneeded.

(Photos: 1st - Shaun praying at a temple in the mountains we visited, 2nd - Us ready for a night out in Chiang Mai [from left: Me, Isobelle, Jenny, Liv, Emily, Adrienne, Ryan], 3rd - Ryan working on a German guy called Malta, 4th - Me and Ryan saw hair-colouring advertised in a hair-salon and had to do it. We did ask for different colours though, but they didn't seem to hear).