After a long night bus ride we arrived in Chang Mai. Chang Mai is the biggest city in the north of Thailand and is the agricultural heart of the country. It is also the considered part of the Golden Triangle, the region where Laos, Myanmar and Thailand meet and where traditionally a lot of drug production and smuggling has gone on. We were confronted by this right away. We got of the bus outside a guest house and were "invited" (forced) in to hear the about the services the guest house had to offer. Clearly the selling point was the relationships you could build with the tribes people by joining them in partaking of some illicit drugs. We weren't too interested but while we were heading for the door we noticed most of the others who took the same bus with us pouring over the testimonials about how great it was to smoke it up with the Chief.

Our main reason for heading north was to get a picture of what Thai tribal culture was like. I don't think we learned to much but we did get some idea. We shopped for handicrafts, watched traditional dancing, and ate some interesting food. Also we got a taste of what life is like outside of Bangkok. In Chang Mai the air is cooler, the green hills are close by and aren't all the things that come along with a big city.

The most impressive thing about Chang Mai has to be the Night Market. Every night hundreds of sellers, and even more buyers, gather to buy and sell things. The atmosphere is festive. Rip-offs abound and you wonder how authentic that craft is that you bought this afternoon when you see a hundred of them lined up at booth where the seller is all decked out in Tommy Hilfiger.

After 2 days we have seen most of the sights and are glad that we have booked a Jungle Trek in a place far from here. While it is cool that Chang Mai is such a trekking center our main concern is not participating on a trek that Sting has supposedly taken part of. So we packed our bags and headed to our final stop,