Traffic here is intense. It is one of the most polluted cities in Thailand, its only real downside. Many people wear masks if they are on a bike, as when you stop at a red light it can easily be 5 minutes until it changes, you can taste the pollution. The cars stop and build up in the queue the bikes weave their way to the front and wait in ever increasing numbers waiting for the green light. Then they are off, everyone trying to get ahead of the cars which eventually catch up and overtake until the next red light where it all happens again. It is strangely exhilarating and frightening at the same time. Thailand has the worst death rate on the roads in the world and the holiday periods especially New Year is when most fatalities occur. They only count deaths not the many thousands injured, it’s horrific. If you are here in the holidays you see lots of young Thais enjoying themselves and drinking beer with shots and then jumping on their motorbikes to go home. Car drivers are the same, lethal. We don’t venture out on the bike at this time it’s not so bad in the middle of the day but never at night it’s too dangerous.

It’s a different way of driving here, you never just stop because things will run into the back of you, you weave your way around and everything seems to flow. There are many police roadblocks where they will fine you 500 baht for not wearing a helmet and if you are a foreigner and don’t have an international driving licence then another fine. Some cynics say the police do this towards the end of the month (before they get their wages) but who knows, they stop a lot of people and police wages are poor. On a couple of a occasions we have been stopped 3 times in one day.

There are lots of different ways to get around. You can hire a motorbike, not for the faint hearted, which costs about £3 a day and a tank of fuel is about £2. You can rent a pushbike for £1 a day, I fancy that even less!!! To rent a car is about £30 a day and marginally safer. The easiest way to get around the city is in a songthaew the open backed red buses which are 30 baht round town. The trick is to tell the driver where you are going and just get in, don’t ask the price as it will always be more expensive, act like a local. There are also yellow buses which go on fixed routes to the outlying villages and are very cheap. Then there are tuk tuks which race around the city and you can bargain with them to get the price down. There is one price for locals, one for a Thai person with a foreigner and then a price for foreigners. If you go on a tour with a company, of which there are hundreds, they use mini buses which go at one speed only, warp factor 9, it’s a proper white knuckle ride. The main roads are very good and straight it’s only when you get into the mountainous areas that they twist and turn. For example the road to Pai which is 76 miles has 762 turns and extreme switchbacks. There is stunning scenery, if you dare take your eyes off the road, or open them in my case. If you are a biker there are some fantastic roads. One of the most famous is the Mae Hong Son loop which takes 4 days and passes through rice fields, forests and mountains and has some spectacular scenery and friendly people. It is an experience you will never forget. The one thing that is so different here than the U.K. there is no road rage. People are very calm, no gesturing or shouting it’s so much better everyone just sits and waits with no problems, I wish I could take that home with me it’s so refreshing.

There are many tours you can do in CM. If you like the wild outdoors you can zip line through the jungle, go white water rafting, wash and walk with elephants, go trekking to tribal villages, visit waterfalls, kayaking, bicycle tours the list is endless. There are 3 National Parks very close to CM to explore. Most guest houses/hotels have racks of leaflets to tempt you. Some tours are a few days and some a few hours. For the not so adventurous there are cooking courses, mindfulness retreats, massages, temple tours, museums. You are never short of something to do. Some of the tours have changed I am pleased to say. The elephant tours no longer let you ride in metal chairs on them and a lot of the tiger tours have been shut down, it’s getting better. There are still monkey and snake shows but animal welfare is improving slowly. This is because the tourists do have a voice and it counts. There is a lot of money generated by animals in tourism and there is still a long way to go.

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Markets are held every Saturday and Sunday all over Thailand. As well as copious amounts of food and drink stalls there are clothes, jewellery, leather goods, soaps and potions for every conceivable illness and photographs of said diseased body parts (not for the squeamish), wooden items, drawings, paintings, musicians playing, the list of what can be purchased or eaten is infinite. There are even places to have a foot massage if you tire of walking. I love the Sunday night walking market in Chiang Mai, but I like to go in early. The police close the roads to traffic at 4pm and the stall holders set up their wares. What I do like about the markets here is their non pushy approach, no hard sell just big smiles even when you say no. By about 7 it becomes very busy, imagine being outside a Wembley cup final 10 minutes before kick off, it’s crazy!! I am well on my way home by this point happy and exhausted full of Thai snacks and purchases.

There are lots of more general everyday markets and the biggest one in CM is called Worrorot Market or Kad Luang. The original market was destroyed by fire in 1968 and subsequently rebuilt into 2 big buildings. It is huge, 3 floors of everything you can imagine. Lots of food and cooking ingredients including live frogs in nets and live fish in bowls as the Thais like everything really fresh. There are clothes, pots and pans, seeds, fishing equipment, toiletries, sweets and cakes with gold sellers/ jewellery stores ringing the outside. Outside the market there are tuk tuks, rickshaws, red buses, motorbikes with side cages for transporting goods and throngs of people milling around. The market is by the Ping river, a big wide river which flows through the city.

Next to Wororot market is the only fresh flower market called Ton Lamyai, a riot of scents and colours. It is open 24 hours a day and most deliveries are done early morning, presumably to all the big posh hotels and homes. You can see lots of Thais and tourists taking pictures of the stunning exotic blooms.

Just across the river by a new pedestrian bridge is a wat called Wat Ket Karam. Within the grounds of the Wat is a really quirky museum called Uncle Jacks History Museum in a restored Lanna teak house which is 500+ years old. It’s aim is to preserve old Lanna culture and has a (dis) organised exhibition of old artefacts. There are fabrics and old gramophones, cooking utensils, furniture, ceramics, farm tools, carved wooden objects, coins and bank notes a real eclectic mix all covered in a generous helping of dust!! The best part for me was the hundreds of old photographs of Chiang Mai. There are some from the early 1900’s which look like the Wild West with people on horseback. I especially like one taken at what became Thae Pae Gate. Its a fantastic glimpse of a bygone era and is run purely on donations.

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Food in Thailand is a national passion, everywhere you go there are dozens of food carts selling all manner of things. Meat and veg on sticks which they bbq, and are very cheap….

Then there are smoothie carts, coffee carts, fruit sellers, white fluffy Chinese style buns filled with black bean paste or shredded pork or custard. People who sell deep fried spring rolls and bags of crispy things and then all the blue plastic tablecloth eateries, they all seem to make a living. People on motorbikes taking home plastic bags full of unknown liquids and styrofoam packed takeaway food. They must have a squillion chickens somewhere because there are eggs a plenty on every stall and every shop. Everybody eats all the time, why are they all so skinny? There must be 50 places in our small village to get good food. If they are not selling food they are eating it!!!! It’s so cheap, for less than a £1 you can have a sit down dinner, it’s brilliant. The aromas of food are intoxicating as you stroll around….

You can do cookery courses here. We have been on 2 so far and they are good fun but definitely don’t eat breakfast before you go. Whatever you cook you eat and that is often a soup, salad, main course and dessert. Before you start cooking they take you to a local market and explain all the different types of rice and show you a myriad of exotic fruit and veggies. We love the markets, they are so colourful and beautifully presented and the stall holders are happy to chat. The only bit I don’t like is the meat sections which just smell of blood and offal. On one stall we noticed they were selling crispy things but when we got closer they were deep fried chicken heads, no thanks. It is good that everything is eaten, every part of every animal but not always appealing to European taste buds…

After 2 weeks of eating and not much exercise, we decided we needed to do something. We had already returned to Satva yoga, Freddy and Nit, which is an excellent class and we both enjoyed but needed more. We joined Fitness Thailand a gym 5 minutes walk from our abode. After looking round and looking at class schedules we joined. We ummed and aarghed a little and both got a reduced student rate for a month of 1500 baht each (£37). They have 8 zumba classes a week and 14 yoga classes so am going to try them all. I have been to 2 zumba classes so far and have already made friends. The Thai people are very inclusive. I have had my photo taken in a group shot, the only farang there but made to feel very welcome even though I looked like a blonde sweaty tomato by that point! These 2 pictures are from Satva yoga class…

The weather here is unusually cold at the moment especially in the mornings and after 5. It still gets to the late 20’s in the middle of the day and is still better than most ‘hot’ English summer days. It’s funny to see the locals with woolly hats and jackets and complaining bitterly about the cold. The security guard Mr Bum must have 3 coats on every night. It makes it easy to sleep at least and having lived in northern England all my life it’s not really cold, a fleece over your t shirt is fine. Even the dogs have jumpers !!

We went to a local reservoir called Huay Teng Tao, only 20 minutes from town. The entrance fee was 50 baht, just over £1. It’s a beautiful space, we drove around it on the bike and found ‘The little bees cafe’. We sat in a little reeded hut overhanging the water and had a cold beer, it’s thirsty work sightseeing! The mountains are the backdrop and we just sat and watched dragonflies fighting/mating over the water and lots of little fish. Bliss. The menu was interesting. One item was hawk moth, horse blankets, I think it might have got lost in translation, I really wanted Chris to order it. Happy days.

It’s been 2 weeks now since leaving dreary and wet Manchester with a light heart for our second long winter escape. Yippee.We had always wanted to spend winter somewhere warm with blue skies, friendly people and fabulous food. For us Chiang Mai is that place.

It takes a bit of organising, especially if you still want your job on your return, but it’s not impossible. We felt like headless chickens (much like everyone else was but for different reasons) giving our contact details to neighbours, checking I had covered all my classes, sorting out cars and vans and emptying the fridge. Making sure we had the visas and copies, spare photos and money. Lots of mundane things to do but worth it!!

As we landed at CM we felt we were home. It just felt easy and familiar and our friend David picked us up. We spent the first few days sleeping in late. We felt no guilt that we should be ‘seeing things’. When you come away for more than 3 months those pressures drop away. We sorted out a motorbike for getting around, got a local Thai SIM card and got Thai baht. Now we’re cooking.

We visited our favourite blue plastic table eatery and had what we had been yearning for since we were last here in February. Pad see u, slippy noodles and pork for Chris and pad tai gai for me, yum. Both dishes and 2 large beers for less than a coffee and cake in our local costa. Result.

The traffic in CM can be fierce but Chris now drives like a local weaving in and out of the cars, trucks and motorbikes. When the lights are on red (often for 5 minutes, an extraordinary long time) the bikes build up at the front like a swarm of bees waiting for the green light and then we are off, formula 1 style. I found it really disconcerting last year but have relaxed more this time………mostly.

We stayed with David and Nuy at their guesthouse, Funky monkey, for the first 5 days which is just on the outside of the moat and very accessible to the centre. CM is a medieval moated city, not too big and full of little alleyways teeming with life and not just tourists. Great places to eat, shops, museums and the most wats and temples I have ever seen in one small place, over 300. There is a temple walking tour you can do, we did it a couple of years ago and it takes all day.

In one corner of the city inside the moat is a lovely green space called Buak Hard Park. All around the edges are places to exercise with all sorts of machines, pull up bars, weights and stuff I have no idea what they do, it looks like torture equipment! In the centre is a lake with huge fish. There are lots of little bridges over the water, fountains, places to sit and read or do yoga, or just watch the world go by. Last year they had the most fantastic flower festival here, we hope it happens this year. It’s the lungs of the city.

Last year we stayed in quite a posh condo in the trendy part of town called Nimman. This area is full of middle class Thai students, digital nomads (mostly American or Canadian) and retirees from all over the world. We liked it there but didn’t want to go back this time. On last years wanderings we found a little area which feels more like a proper Thai village, only 10 minutes from where we were, which we preferred. We spoke to a guesthouse owner took a card and that is where we are now and love it. We have a big room, huge bed, balcony, flat screen tv, fridge and very friendly owners. It is much quieter, cheaper and more authentic. It costs us £160 a month plus electric and water.Although we had a full kitchen last time we decided we didn’t want one this time, a fridge would suffice. We only need stuff for breakfast and we are happy with yoghurt and muesli. I don’t go anywhere without my kettle and supply of tea bags, so that all works. It is so cheap to eat out it’s not worth cooking, although sausage, mash and baked beans was a must after 2 months of rice and noodles last year. I’ll live!!

We like to escape into the local hills on the bike. CM is surrounded by huge national parks, mountains and valleys of breathtaking splendour only 20 minutes from the centre of the city. We especially like the projects which is where all the local produce comes from. These small settlements, often hill tribes, grow fruit and veg and many wonderful things. It feels like you are in a forgotten world. The late King started this initiative to try and stop the growing of opium. He gave the farmers a very good price for growing cabbage, cauliflower, strawberrys etc and they all have huge new 4×4’s so they can’t be doing too badly. I think they still sneak the odd field of their previous crop in…….

I also have a bit of an addiction to a local band that plays in a bar called Loco Elvis. Never understood the name until I noticed a picture on the wall of the late King meeting Elvis in army uniform in the 50’s. It’s a young band who play classic rock tunes and the guitarist plays like an angel. He is so talented I can’t believe he plays for just a few quid. In this bar they also serve mugeritas which is a margarita in a mug, another attraction for a good night out. Rock on. We are now on speaking terms with the band, their English groupies.

Just out of the old city is Doi Suthep, a very famous temple greatly revered by Buddhists. It is on top of a hill overlooking the city up a very windy road. We actually prefer the small temple halfway up in the forest. It is the most serene of places. You can walk up to the top. We are going to attempt this 12k walk as a bit of practise for our walk in India. Once a year, at New Year, hundreds of monks walk up on the road like a long orange train to the temple, a wondrous sight.