I have been very slack on the job front in the last week. Have been pretty much just hanging out and playing tourist. Am really enjoying Chiang Mai, it is one of those cities that really grows on you and it would be really easy to live here. It's a funny place, in some ways the Thais can be very organised and clearly have set ways of doing things, and in other ways it's chaotic here.The traffic has it's own set of rules I have yet to decipher, everyone arrives at an intersection and there just seems to be a random sort of order as to who goes first, they sort of just take turns. In other cases cars just honk as they approach an intersection as an indicator of ''coming through, beware". I have seen very few accidents though and given you see a full family on a scooter (mum, dad, child and little baby in someone's arms) all without helmets, it seems to be safe enough. Apparently the mentality here is that any accident is your fault. A nice change to the 'who can I blame' Western mentality! I even saw a Border Collie happily seated on a scooter as it made it's way through the traffic. How the hell do you train a dog to sit on the back of a moving scooter??!Crossing the road is fun and has involved a fair amount of running rather than walking. The pavements are haphazard to say the least (where they actually exist) and you need to watch your head wherever you go. They have a few pedestrian crossings where you get about 11 seconds of green light to walk, and even then it seems optional for the cars to stop. You have to wait to make sure they are really going to let you across and the cross as fast as you can. The food is interesting, lots of unidentifiable stuff, and unlike Bangkok, not everywhere has English menus, so some of it is still a mystery to me. The bug stands are very popular though, you can get any kind of deep fried insect your heart desires - grubs, crickets, cockroaches... all there for the eating. Yum!Went to the Zoo yesterday. Was like most zoos in the sense it was as depressing as it was interesting, but still, was nice to get out of the city to somewhere with trees and less pollution. They had more birds than anything else, spectacular sorts of pheasants and mackaws etc. Very pretty.We got to get right up to a family of elephants, one of which could play the harmonica... as elephants are wont to do....
I loved the orangutan though. Was sitting on the edge of the water just chilling and chewing on fruit. He seriously could not have cared less.....
After the zoo we headed up to Doi Suithep, the Wat towards the top of the mountain that overlooks Chiang Mai. Very pretty and great view, but absolutely packed and very touristy.
Even the monks were behaving like tourists here, wandering around getting their photos taken in front of Buddhas:
It was a fairly clear day yesterday (ie, you could actually tell you were in a valley surrounded by mountains for a change) so the view from the mountain was pretty good. Here is Chiang Mai.. I am staying within the old walled city (which is a square within the centre of the city)
The guest house is the opposite of luxurious and some days there is water and others it's hit and miss, but its 80 baht ($2.50) a night and I'm in the dorm on the top floor, which has windows, two day beds outside and a balcony area that no one knows about so we have it pretty much to ourselves. Am feeling quite comfy there!
Enough rambling for now!
Looks like a bit of mould at first, but zoom in... uh uh... daddy long legs the size of my palm... everywhere! This is just one corner of the bathroom, several other corners were the same. We got more up close and personal with them on the following day on a 5 hour waterfall hike. They seem to like living in massive groups near water, so there were many moments walking along the river when it was safest just to not look down to avoid seeing them swarming all over the ground. 
I leave Chiang Mai for Vietnam on Friday, where I'll be volunteering in Nha Trang for 4 weeks before heading to Cambodia. Look forward to hearing how everyone is going!
