Today I came to realize that it would take at least a month before one is tired of Chiang Mai.

I finally overslept until 11.30 – hadn’t happened in a while and so I really started to feel like someone who is on holiday, someone who owns her day and someone who doesn’t need to be anywhere by any specific time. What a blessing!

Had breakfast at cafe Aom, no way I give up my coffee and sweet breakfast, but the toast wasn’t great. Thailand has great fruit but miserable jams, I wonder why?

As I wanted to save the money for the tour, I went to the Temple on the hill by myself and spent in total 160 Baht.

There is a station for the red cars, the songthaew, on one side of the Chiang Mai university, the driver would take you up (12km ride) for 40 or 50 baht once there are at least another 5 to 10 passengers.

The Doi Suthep is a beautiful temple and a very busy one – hundreds of shoes were laying at the entrance hall and it has been impossible for me to take pictures without strangers’ heads or backs!

One of my favorite thing about the prayer ceremonies in these Buddhist temples, is listening to the shaking noise of the Chi Chi Sticks.

Every place of worship of every religion has people seeking answers, but only with this practice you get to shake a bunch of sticks until the one holding your answer drops, just for you and your question.

I have one set at home, I bought it in Shanghai, when me and Bezza were on our little tour of China. Speaking of Bezza, I took her advice and went to get a full body message at the centre for the female ex-prisoners of Chiang Mai; what an experience! The massage halls had five lines of 5 beds and women in a pink and brown uniform were vigorously, very vigorously massaging an equal number of (un)fortunate people. And I was one of them! For a split second, at the moment I had to lay down, I regretted having had garlic naan and brown dhal ten minutes earlier, but my stomach held it just fine. The pain is more in the neck, and the shoulders, and the back…but it’s good for you…right?right!

So yes, lunch at New Delhi, in Chiang Mai was super delicious and still around 4 euros.