I woke up this morning with a smile on my face.  I was in a new city and a new country!

I woke up late (by travelling standards) at 10am to an empty room.   Seems everyone here is an early riser.

For the brief hour I was sitting outside in the courtyard last night typing away yesterday’s blog I was attacked by mosquitoes.   I woke up to the after effects this morning with a dozen welts on my calves.

Guess they can’t resist my sweet, sweet Canadian blood.

Needless to say the first thing I did this morning was lather myself in mosquito spray.

And then I headed out to explore the city of Chiang Mai.

I only have today here before going to volunteer at the Elephant Nature Park for a week starting tomorrow.   Once I’m done with that I’ll spend a few more days here but, for today, it was just about walking around the city exploring.

As I walked the quiet streets of the inner city I smiled at the lack of tourists, the lack of honking, the lack of crazy ass drivers and the lack of people trying to sell me things.

It was such a nice change.

I walked down the streets unaccosted for over two hours.

I stopped for a nice lunch of thai chicken with rice and egg (50 baht, $1.75) and some fresh watermelon slices (20 baht, 70 cents).

Oh, and lots of bottles of water.

The bottled water is super cheap (6 baht, 25 cents) and there are 7-11 stores on like every block here in Chiang Mai.

In the afternoon I went for another hair cut as while having short hair is great for travelling, it does mean I have to get it shaved every couple of weeks.

And then a massage.

Oh, an authentic Thai massage!

I actually walked out of the main area of town down into the “real” Chiang Mai where foreigners are few and far between.

I had almost given up my search of finding a massage place in that area and was about to turn back when I saw it.

A small place with two women sitting in the lobby and three tables side by side next to it.

Perfect.

Best.   Massage.   Ever!

She cracked and twisted things for an hour and all of a sudden the after effects of walking around for a couple of hours was gone.

I was fresh again.

I got back to the hostel just before 6pm just as the night market was starting a few blocks away.   Vicky, a girl I had met a few weeks ago in Hoi An, and I went down to the market anticipating great things and great food.

We weren’t dissapointed.

Unlike the market I visited in Vietnam this one wasn’t filled with a bunch of the same souvenir crap in every booth.

And no pushy people behind those booths.   Here you could actually browse at things without someone hounding you to buy, buy, buy.

For me though, the night market was about all the awesome food I could try.

To that end, I’ll end this blog with photos of everything I had at the night market.   Enjoy…