14/12/2023 - Krabi to Change Mai.

After a prolonged ten days in Krabi and feeling like I was mostly recovered from my recent misadventures, the time had come to try somewhere else. Location wise it would have been fairly easy to jump to one of the nearby islands for a few days and locations such as Koh Sumui or Koh Lanta are well enough known that getting to such places wouldn’t have been a problem. All would be easily booked at one of the many, many stalls in and around the town that sold local experiences and onward travel. However I know by now that whilst the idea of relaxing by the beach with a book in one hand and cold drink in the other might seem appealing in thought, in reality I know that I would lose interest in such non-activity within matter of minutes. Instead I decided to fly up to Chiang Mai which was still located in the north of the country, unless someone had moved it since my previous brief visit in 2016 and whilst my back was turned 6000+ miles away.

My reason for this choice of destination was pretty much the heat levels that I had been enduring since I had  arrived from the UK at the end of October. Whilst the temperatures there had dropped into single figures in the run up to departure, almost everyday since landing had felt like a bit of a scorcher. Now with recent temperatures having been sat at around the 32 to 33 degrees mark, I had been feeling genereally unwell in myself. Chiang Mai on the other hand, whilst not cold by British standards, was currently sitting at a few degrees cooler. This I hoped might just be enough to get me out of the worst of it for a little while and allow my core temperature to settle down for a few days. I booked the flight online as usual and as the time to leave, I carefully packed and weighed my “feels heavier that if should be” luggage and took myself in the hotel lobby in preparedness for the obligatory 300 Baht taxi ride to the Airport. Obligatory for tourists at least.  

The flight itself was uneventful, Leaving at around 2pm and landing at Chiang Mai at just after 4pm. Luggage collection was quick and painfree, and as the airport itself is fairly small and compact I was very quickly conversing at the exit with a couple of ladies who helped to organise a taxi ride to the booked hotel. For me (and I think anyone going to the walled area of the city) the fare was a reasonably sounding 90 Baht, although this could have been due to my 300 baht fare mental condition of recent times. The ride was 1.5 miles from Airport to Hotel and took barely fifteen minutes, It had taken just over thirty minutes from touching down on the runway to reaching the door of my hotel room after check-in. I would be nice if all arrivals at all destinations could be so quick and pain free. 

The room at the hotel was fine, especially considering the price paid. It was large space furnished with a a good sized, comfortable bed, chair and had a nicely designed well laid out shower room that was separated from the bedroom by a glass panelled sliding door.  The shower itself was worthy go note, providing a powerful flow of water and positioned high enough to meant I did not need to contort my body to simply have a top to toe cleansing experience. There were a few negative points however. The desk space wasn’t anywhere that I felt comfortable working at for any period of time and there wasn’t much natural light that was able to come into the room itself. This lack of light also meant that a dark desk in the darkest part of the room made it so that object could easily disappear from view, but it seems churlish for any real criticism to be levelled against it for the money paid (around 750 Baht per night), It was somewhere that would be able to serve as a perfectly adequate space for a few days at least. The hallway outside though, that was womewhere that did troubled me a little being that there was a certain resemblance to a certain hallway in a certain Stanley Kubrick film that had been adapted from certain Stephen King novel. Once noticed I found that a little bit difficult to simply look past.  

      
As evening fell and the light faded, I walked around a good portion of the old city's walled perimeter, stopping after around an hour to get a Penang curry at “Kat’s Kitchen”, a simple looking eatery that had a positive overall rating on google and my second Penang in as many days, I guess we are creatures of habit after all, as much as we might wish that this not be the case. Once finished I decided that it was probably enough for one day and all that was left was to walk back to the hotel along dimly lit back streets, avoiding deep, uncovered holes, visit a 7-11 for some overnight sustenance, and hope beyond hope that there was no bouncing ball, tricycle, or scary looking twins loitering outside in the hallway when I got back.