After having felt so unwell in Koh Tao, arriving in Chiang Mai gave both Rob and I a new burst of life and energy. Our little apartment in Gategaa village was lovely and within about ten minutes of us arriving, Ellie and Tom joined us for their final afternoon bringing with them all of their enthusiasm of youth.
We lazed in the rooftop pool for a while with Ellie chatting incessantly and Tom managing to interject occasionally about all they’d discovered in Chiang Mai and what we had to do. It felt like she had months to catch up on rather than just a few days but it was lovely and did even more to revive my flagging spirits. Knowing Joe was happy at home in London with Paris, her mum Dana and her sister Kara, all of whom he adores, also helped.
That evening we’d asked Ellie and Tom to choose, from their four days of experience, where we were having dinner. They picked a small restaurant in the old town where they had eaten previously. 
Its main attraction, as well as lovely food, was its nightly live music. We sat back and relaxed while an Australian pianist played classical pieces from Beethoven, Bach and his favourite, Schubert, followed by one of the waiters singing various hits from several artists including Elton John, Van Morrison and our favourite Ed.
The next morning we had decided to take advantage of the free bike loan that Gategaa villas offers. Although we’d desperately tried to shake them off🤣Ellie and Tom decided to join us for their last morning, thankfully they’d exchanged their moped for mobikes, Chiang Mai’s alternative to London’s Boris bikes.
After cycling around with our baskets and rear carriers full of dirty washing we eventually found a lovely lady who promised to have it ready for us by 10am the following morning. Although this may seem a relatively insignificant thing it is fast becoming one of my favourite aspects of Asia. For about 40 baht (£1) a kg, we can drop off all of our soiled garments and a day later arrive to them beautifully clean, sweet smelling and neatly pressed. See why I love it?❤️
Anyway, after dropping this off and consequently feeling unencumbered and more able to steer, we set off to explore the old city. On our way however we found Tom and Ellie’s idea of heaven and Rob’s idea of hell! As it was their last morning Rob was over ruled by the young ones so we hurried in to, ‘The pet friendly cafe’.
Rob was slightly appeased to find that it was only dogs, which he quite likes, if it had been full of cats we might not have got him in there. They were also rather cute 
and very well behaved, 
apart from the huskies who were banished to a conservatory, 
so, once handed his coffee, Rob was quite happy to relax while Tom and Ellie took full advantage of their canine company.
After giving them sufficient time to satisfy their nurturing instincts and discuss in detail exactly what dogs they would have in the future😱we dragged Tom and Ellie back to the bikes and continued to the city wall. Rob was delighted to be back on a bike albeit not quite what he’s used to
and Ellie, whose ideal bike has always been the old fashioned, basket on the front, sit up and beg style bike was in her element.
After a brief interlude with some pigeons, or ‘rats from the sky’ as Rob prefers to refer to them
we continued on our way. All too quickly the morning was over, we returned to our accommodation for lunch and for Ellie to make use of the showering facilities before we had to say goodbye to the happy pair as they wended their way to their final stop in Bangkok.
After spending a short time moping in our room we pulled ourselves together and set out to explore a little more of Chiang Mai. After cycling down various roads and paths we came to a cafe I had read about. 
It specialised in gluten free foods and while Rob ate lunch, he hadn’t been hungry earlier, I had to try large pieces of both of their gluten free cakes. 
This was also our first, and probably last in Rob’s case, experience of sitting, Asian style, on the floor at low tables. 
It definitely felt different and rather than sitting up straight we soon found ourselves lounging against the various cushions. After complaining profusely to start with I think Rob actually quite enjoyed this, he certainly looked like he’d be quite happy to settle down for an afternoon nap.
Spoiling Rob’s relaxation we returned to our bikes and our explorations. We found an amazing park where for 10THB (25p) we bought a bag of fish food and saw more fish than I’ve ever seen, so highly concentrated, in one area
and people watching, we began to notice the park filling up. Work had obviously finished for the day and the people of Chiang Mai were congregating for various physical pursuits. As well as hundreds of joggers 
and lots of users of the outdoor gym equipment there were also yoga and martial arts classes taking place and a game I have never seen or heard of before being practised on a large paved area. 
It was great to see and possibly helps explain why there seems to be so little obesity in Chiang Mai.
On arriving back to our hotel with Rob happily replete from his late lunch and me full of cake (I’d brought some home in a doggy bag) we decided to stay in for the evening. Coming out of the shower and finding Rob happily lying on the bed 
watching Kylie in concert 
I saw why he was so quick to agree to an evening in. Knowing I’d get very little from him for the next hour or so I lost myself in my book and so the evening passed.😊
The next few days in Chiang Mai flew by with lots more cycling, numerous more temples, an amazing climb, another massage and lots of eating. I’m touching wood as I’m saying this but since arriving in Asia I have had no issues with gluten at all. As long as I’ve chosen rice dishes or rice noodles and avoided soy sauce in the cooking I’ve been well. It seems they’re much more loath to use wheat flour as a thickening agent which suits me fine. I have eaten an awful lot of rice though and have also discovered some amazing ice cream at the markets. You get to choose what ingredients you want before they chop and mix it all together on a large, freezing cold plate in front of you. They then squash it all down really thinly on to the plate before scraping it off into ice cream rolls. They place about ten of these into a large paper cup, squirt cream and sauce on top and place whole pieces of the initial ingredients around the outside. My chocolate and banana version was delicious, unfortunately Rob, who didn’t initially want one, thought so too!
One historical site we enjoyed in Chiang Mai was Wiang Kum Kam. This was the original city from about the 13th Century and was built around the original path of the Ping river. When flooding became an issue the king moved the main city, the present Chiang Mai, on to higher ground. The old city, consisting of about 22 different sites, mostly temples,was only excavated in fairly recent history. 
Although the sites are spread out you could visit them on an open sided tour bus or a horse and cart. Rob and I stuck to our trusty bikes, visiting them at our own pace and in a rather haphazard order
at the end of our visit, we should have gone here first, we came across the museum and information centre which placed everything into context and explained what we’d observed. Better late than never!
Chiang Mai is overflowing with temples, every road you walk down has at least one and to my non discerning eye, they all look pretty much the same. 
After the first few Rob and I did our best to avoid them but half way through our stay we did deliberately set out to visit two, more for the journey than the destination.
We had been looking for something fairly active to do and, in our research, had discovered the Monk’s trail. We had vague instructions of where to go so set off one morning to visit Wat Pha Lat and Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. We caught a Grab, Asia’s version of Uber, to Chiang Mai University before following a concrete road up past an entrance to the zoo and on to the start of the hike. We should have caught the grab up to the zoo entrance as that very first part along the road was incredibly steep and exhausting in the rising temperatures. It was however a mere warm up for the actual hike which got steeper and much less even underfoot as we followed remnants of the monks orange robes as markers on our way.
Luckily, part of it was in shade and the surrounding beauty of the temples and their settings, particularly the first one, helped distract us from our pain and urged us onwards and upwards.
The atmosphere at the first temple, set amidst waterfalls, forest and large rocks, was extremely tranquil. You could see why many people chose it as a place to meditate and pray. Rob and I stopped here for a short while and, making it clear to the Buddha that although he’s a great guy there is only one true God, I practised meditating and said a little prayer. 
Although there was an option to get transport from here to the temple at the top of the mountain we chose to continue our torture to the top
After another painful hour we finally reached our reward and although there were many more tourists here it was still pretty impressive. 
Probably most impressive was that many Monks used to do this daily to practice their faith and to meditate. I think they only went up to the first temple though – lightweights.🤣
The best thing about arriving at the top was removing our shoes. We have practically lived in flip flops for the last four months and wearing trainers on our various hikes has felt so restrictive. Removing our sweaty, sodden socks and footwear and placing our bare feet on the ceramic tiles was heaven. 
Once we had consumed some liquid energy in the form of a cold coke and Rob had reluctantly prised himself off of his seat we wandered around revelling in the coolness and freedom of our feet.
The view from the top, although a little hazy, was still impressive 
after admiring this for a little while we knew it was time to move on and extremely reluctantly we replaced our soggy socks and trainers and set off for the dangerous descent.
Despite the pain this was probably one of my favourite things we did in Chiang Mai and I would highly recommend it. I would also recommend a massage the next day but probably go for the relaxing one as Rob did rather than the Thai one I chose.🤔
We loved Chiang Mai and could definitely have settled here longer but Laos was calling so time to move on. We’ll be back!
Rob & Emma's Trip 
Enjoyable read.
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