Chiang Mai is a lovely place. A small town in a valley full with history.  (and tourists). We are staying at the D2 hotel , a brand new boutique hotel with lounge music and hi design. It is great!
As everywhere in Thailand the food is excellent and ridiculously cheap . My Diet Coke costs 25 cents and a plate fried rice with chicken 50 cents. Taxi's, clothing everything is one Euro or less. And yet: people don't look poor. The town is cheerful, clean and looking prosperous.We did a walking tour and saw the temples of the ancient regimes. On the way back we took our first tuktuk - and last because you don't see alot from it. :-)

For a lousy €12 (including beverages and hot lunch) we  made a 12 hour trip from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. The train (a south Korean Daewoo) and the tracks were in good condition so we had a smooth ride.
However nice the landscape (endless rice fields and forests) is, it was a very (to) long trip. So on our way back we will take the airplane from Thai airways. That will cost us twice as much: € 24... :-)

We made a bicycle trip through Bangkok and its surroundings. This is organized by a dutch guy who obviously cannot stop bicycling... We were with one other Dutch Couple (who are planning to bicycle some more - from Bangkok to Vietnam to be accurate... :-) )
The town was busy and everywhere we found people preparing food on the street. We had some lovely coconut pancakes, some pineapple and some fried sweet potatoes.  We a boat we crossed the river and came in a completely different world: a sort of jungle where there were small paths where we could bike trough.
Although the temperature was high, a light breeze made everything quite comfortable.
We stopped in the middle of nowhere to have lunch (fried rice - what else) and I must say: it tasted very good. :-)
After 6 hours we returned and had dinner again in our Hotel (only this time on the teras at the 51st floor)
We have to sleep early because tomorrow we have to catch the first train to Chang Mai.

After a good flight we have arrived in Bangkok. We went straight to the Lebua Hotel and tried to catch up some sleep. At sunset we went upstairs to the Sirocco restaurant at the 64 st  floor. It has breath taking views over Bangkok.
We had dinner with Tineke & Bob our friend s whom we haven't seen for ages. We had a lot of catching up to do, so it was late when we  turned to bed.

Today we are flying to Bangkok via Singapore. We are staying at the Lebua Hotel, A very tall skyscraper with supposably excellent views to  downtown Bangkok and the river.

Let's hope that Oprah's endorsement of Barrack will make that difference. I know I can believe in it...