Hi and Happy Solstice to all of you reading back home, where it's dark and snowy and you're probably curled up under a blanket somewhere. Here it's sunny, hot, and even the shortest day of the year is still eleven hours long. Yeah, I know, don't rub it in, right?

This morning, after a classy breakfast of 7/11 toasties and coffee, we checked out of our Chiang Mai hotel and hailed a Grab to the bus station. We were both sad to leave Chiang Mai, a place that will likely do down in history as one of my favourite travel spots of all time. But, such is the life of travellers with short amounts of time and much world to see: Onwards and forwards.

We boarded the GreenBus, a tourist coach service, for Chiang Rai. We'd booked a VIP class bus, since it was only like two dollars more than the regular bus. The giant seats had footrests, seatback entertainment that didn't seem to work, and air conditioning blasting full speed that definitely did. I took a Gravol in case of windy road conditions, so I basically ended up just sleeping through most of the 3.5-hour ride. 

Arriving in Chiang Rai around 1:30pm, we walked five minutes or so to our hotel. We're staying at a small guesthouse that's simple but clean and has everything we need for a couple of nights. It's also a short walk to the centre of town, so after we deposited our bags, we set out to check out the place and take care of a few necessities.

Chiang Rai is a smaller city than Chiang Rai, with about half the population size. But it's quite sprawling and seems built more for cars than for people. The centre of town is quite walkable, but anything more than a few blocks out isn't very pedestrian friendly.  It feels like a lot of backpackers skip Chiang Rai or just visit it as a daytrip from Chiang Mai, though the three-hour drive each way makes that seem a bit silly. In any case, our first impression of Chiang Rai was that it's a bit sleepy and not very happening.

Maybe it's unfair to compare it to the backpacker haven of Chiang Mai, but neither of us instantly clicked with the vibe here in Chiang Rai. Oh, it's fine and all; it just doesn't feel like anything special. But that's okay; those magical moments can't happen everywhere. And we're mostly here to see sights around and outside the city anyway. 

Our first order of business was finding some lunch, which we ended up getting from a sort of outdoor food court near a temple. We ordered chicken with spicy basil (the famous Pad Kra Pao) and fried egg, and shared a giant plate of it that was really tasty. They asked us on a scale of one chili to four, how spicy we wanted it. We opted for one chili. I'm rather glad, since it was just the perfect amount of spice for me. Four probably would've killed me. Yes, I'm a wuss.

Our other errands this afternoon proved far more complicated than they ought to have been. First, we needed to buy some phone credit to top up our mobile SIM cards. Unfortunately, the online top-up site didn't work with any of our international credit cards, and the telecom provider we'd purchased (AIS) doesn't sell their top-up cards at 7/11 anymore. We ended up figuring out that they had them at another convenience store chain, Lotus GoFresh. Those are less conveniently located, so we had to walk a bit further to find one. But we finally figured it out.

Next, we needed to sort out our plans for tomorrow. We'd been hoping to hire a private English-speaking driver and guide to take us around to a few of the temples and sights in this region, but we had a surprising amount of trouble lining one up. We inquired at a few companies and reached out to several guides on Whatsapp, but everyone was booked for tomorrow, or wanted a crazy amount of money. We ended up just going with the simple option and booking onto a group day tour from our hotel's front desk. I'm not normally a big fan of tours, but hopefully this one will work out okay.

By that point it was late afternoon and verging on beer o' clock. Chiang Rai isn't really a hub for craft beer, but I'd noted one bar in my research that looked good from the reviews. It seemed to be only a 15 or 20 minute walk away. Unfortunately, I hadn't accounted for Chiang Rai's sprawl. 

The bar ended up being a walk down some main roads and highways, and it turned out to be a small shop selling only bottles and cans located in the lobby of a big hotel. Whoops. Not exactly what we expected. Oh well, we still each got a can of something local to try, and chalked this up to a bit of a fail. I think we'll stick to the commercial lagers for the rest of our stay in Northern Thailand.

Not keen on the walk back along major highways in the dark, we sensibly hailed a Grab back to the hotel. After a shower and short rest, and sorting some details for tomorrow, we headed back out to check out the local Night Bazaar. After all, this is Southeast Asia; the first rule of travel is there's always a night market. The second rule is, when there's a night market, it's usually a good place to find some dinner.

Walking back up towards the Clock Tower, we started to see a different side of Chiang Rai after dark, and we started to realise our mistake from earlier: You can't judge places in Southeast Asia by how they are in the sleepy middle of the afternoon. Most towns in the region come alive at night, and Chiang Rai is no exception. The Clock Tower and Walking Street were all lit up by night, and the lanterns over the Night Bazaar street were lit up too. Bars, restaurants, and vendors were all set up, and people were out and about. Now there's the vibe we were looking for earlier.

We meandered a bit and found the food court area dotted with stalls selling every kind of food imaginable. I opted for some stir fried green noodles with vegetables. Ryan liked yesterday's Khao Soi soup so much that he ordered another. We washed it all down with a Leo beer. The atmosphere wasn't quite on par with Chiang Mai's -- that would be hard to top -- but we still enjoyed ourselves.

After a quick detour by the 7-Eleven for some water and snacks, we headed back to our hotel to prepare for an early morning tomorrow. It was a bit of a low-key day today, but they can't all be highlight-reel worthy. Tomorrow's should be really something, though.