Apart from some of the remnants of an obviously once quaint town -- colonial style cafes, temples, sections of the old city wall, and plenty of lane ways -- all of which we pottered around, Chaing Mai has been developed at an astonishing rate... And is now very much wrapped up in western sensibilities.

The most unexpected thing we found (bearing in mind we've seen little in the way of western infrastructure since leaving home) was a mall: Central Festival . We've seen little arcades, with market-like shops, but this was a brand-spanking-new, ultra-clean (I'd forgotten what clean was!), ooba-modern, five-story monster. It was better than Blue Water. Simply astonishing. It even had an M&S!

We actually went to the mall because it had a cinema. And we havn't been to a cinema in months -- unless you count the weird screening in Vietnam. We really wanted to see the new Thor movie. So we paid a little extra for the VIP experience: to have a pair of reclining seats complete with blankets, and a butler who brought us popcorn and fresh orange juice.