Chiang Mai Christmas 2015 (moved from old blog)

Chiang Mai: A very Jedi Christmas. 

With four whole days off for Christmas I decided it was time to go somewhere. Jacki jumped on board and we brainstormed places to go. Our clear winner was Chiang Mai in Thailand! We found cheap flights and booked them. We flew Christmas Eve, a whole hour and a half later we landed into the amazing warmth of Thailand.

Jacki found us an amazing hostel/guest house called the Green Tulip. It's run by a woman called Stella who was described to us as "militantly hospitable" and "aggressively pleasant." Within about 2 minutes of us having arrived at the hostel we had been sat down, had our bags taken off us and had a beer put in front of us. Its an amazing hostel and Stella really is the most helpful person about.


xmas dinner

David and Lora had been in Chiang Mai for a few days before so they had already sussed out a decent drinking place. It turned out to be a handy place and became a starting point for every outing after that. Christmas eve was just dinner with a few drinks and a walk down a nearby bar street. 

Christmas day was pretty much panned; we met with David and Lora, exchanged gifts and went to find a cinema to watch the new Star Wars movie, after which we went to an English style pub for a full three course Christmas dinner complete with crackers, turkey and silly hats. Dinner was a traditional English affair, we started with prawns, followed with turkey and vegetables and finished off with Christmas pudding. Luckily several people didn't like their pudding so Jacki and I had several! It was a perfect meal except that Xmas dinner with Mai Tai's in thirty degree heat is a little weird but still enjoyable! 


Its looks very silly when not behind the camera.

 Next to the pub is a huge night market in which we bought loads of presents for people back in Kunming and still managed to treat ourselves. Lora is a bit of a ruthless machine when it comes to bargaining, so we got some really good deals. We finished up in a bar overlooking the market, had a few drinks and then went back to the hostel. 
Boxing day; David and Lora had a flight that afternoon so we decided to just meet at the 3D museum. It is full of 3D paintings with spaces for people to pose in bizarre and ridiculous scenes. Its is selfie heaven! We spent hours here and took hundreds of pictures between us, it is by far the most fun I have had in a museum. We all just giggled for the whole time we were there. 

David and Lora left us at the museum to go to the airport so Jacki and I went to Tesco. We could have been in a Tesco in England, we picked up loads of things that are so simple but that we just cant get in China. Getting things like moisturiser or deodorant is normally difficult in China so we stocked up and bought loads. 

All that was left of our trip was some last minute shopping for friends and to try and cram all of our stuff into various bags. We had both planned on shopping so our bags were pleanty big enough. We will be back!