We completed the 3 hour journey on a local bus, rather than a tourist coach. It cost a lot less but was a lot bumpier! It was fun though as we got to spread out a lot more, it was like travelling on a poor man's Wilts & Dorset bus and we got to see some beautiful Thai countryside!
We made it to Chiang Rai by late afternoon and really struggled to find accommodation. Finally we found somewhere, but it was quite a walk out of town. Chiang Rai was a small town with nothing really to entice travellers there, other than the fact that it's the first sizable town you reach from the Laos boarder.
On our second night we wanted to watch the Manchester derby. Kick off was 2am and with Chiang Rai having very few bars, we struggled to find anywhere to watch it. In the end we found a 24 hour restaurant where all of the night market workers and tuk tuk drivers eat. We watched it there, but spent the entire 2nd half having to listen to some drunk 60 year old German tell us about his 'love affair' with Liverpool. In the end we just started ignoring him as he kept chatting rubbish and making us miss the football!
We didn't get in until nearly 5am and then managed to oversleep and very nearly miss the tuk tuk which we'd arranged to pick us up at the hotel at 10am! We got to the bus station and queued for tickets to Chiang Rai. But all of the buses were fully booked and the next available bus didn't leave until 4.30pm. So we spent the next 4 hours doing what we do best now, sitting and waiting!
And that was that! The fact that we only have one photograph from our two days there sums it up, and even that photo is of a bus! But Chiang Mai was a lot better and will take us a lot longer to write up when we get the chance!
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