Thursday, 5th January, 2017 – Chiangmai Mai

Yes, Mr Benn’s Blog is back!! And yes, Benn Tours has another ‘trip of a lifetime’ all planned and may I say how delighted I am that you could join us even if in spirit only. I will try as ever to entertain and educate and, I hope, whet your appetite to travel to some of the spots we will be visiting over the next few months.

First stop is Chiang Mai in Thailand. This year the packing went well, Val did not panic and we were all thoroughly relaxed and professional in the build-up to the trip. So I suppose it should not have come as much of a surprise that the taxi we booked to take us to the airport failed to show up. They did text us that they were on their way, but when they failed to appear, we rang to be told ‘oh, sorry, we have cancelled it’. I will leave it to your imagination as to my comment to that! So a call to an alternative taxi company was made and all was, eventually, well. In the spirit of my dear departed father, I had, of course, allowed enough time for such an eventuality, so we made it Terminal 5, Heathrow in good time. He always suggested that you should allow enough time to change a wheel on the car, which is quite a good tip. There you are, I told you this would be educational!

We flew to Bangkok with BA without incident, then switched to Bangkok Airways for the onward journey to Chiang Mai. The walk in Bangkok Airport felt long enough that we began to wonder if we were going to walk there instead ! Still, we boarded our next flight and settled down for the quick jump to Chiang Mai – except that they then seemed to take all the luggage off and count it all and then, eventually, put it all back on again. All very odd. We got chatting to a nice lady from Winnipeg in Canada, who was very jolly, though had the rather peculiar habit of putting her hand on my knee and thigh every time she chatted. Now I like people to be more tactile. I really think that the English could improve in this area, but this was quite unnerving. I don’t think there was anything to it (though who could blame her when sat next to a George Clooney lookalike), it was just her manner. We never got her name, but are both sure she must be called Pat…..

We are staying at a boutique hotel outside of the old city in what at first looked a rather inauspicious area, but it has turned out to be really excellent. It is wonderfully peaceful, the people are lovely (we are in the ‘land of smiles’ apparently and they live up to it with knobs on), the food good and the room comfortable. I think we will do very well.

Here are a few pics of our room – more on the rest of the resort in due course. Spot the dusky enchantress on the bed!

Our first full day was one of recovery, though the jet lag seems to have been difficult to shift. We did take the free shuttle to an enormous shopping mall nearby, really to stock up a few essential snacks in case we need a little something in the middle of the night. They even had an M&S there! Not really my cup of tea, but always interesting when you are in another country to see how they shop. Not cheap though at all!

Sleeping proved a bit patchy, though one benefit of this was being able to watch Spurs beat Chelsea live on the TV at 3am. Every cloud…..

I will post this blog and then start the next one shortly. Thanks for getting this far – assuming you have!