2nd Leg of our Trip, Chiang Mai!!

Chiang Mai, what a real relief from the hustle and bustle of Bangkok. After a 10 hour bus ride, with the same rip off stops along the way where you aer awoken from your uncomfortable bus ride and shouted at that we have 25 minutes to eat some slop they prepared for 5-6 coaches that will be stopping there too. Seems to be the same whereever you go, the same green leaves, the same halogen light bulbs, a complete nightmare. But a pleasant surprise when at 6am we arrived in a car park, jumped into the back of a taxi truck thing and it whizzed us off to Nice Place 2. This was where we were to spend a few days, exploring from. People we had met had told us that they stayed at Nice Place, and was meant to be a Nice Plce, so we decided to stop there.
It was ok, Nice is a bit confident, Ok Place would've been more suitable. After resting a little we hit the streets of Chiang Mai. For those who do not know, Chiang Mai was the old capital of Thailand many years ago, and is situated in the north of Thailand, in the foothills of the Golden Triangle, and surrounded by misty mountains. There is a huge temple actually at the top of the highest point in Thailand, (the photo with the clouds and golden thing on a hill), we took it from the city centre. So as you can see there are already open views, wow!
Although the temperature is a few degrees cooler than the south, or Bangkok even, it was still hot enough. So we hired a bike to get around so not to lose too much moisture. Turned out to be a fab idea, as it is a quiet city, we just got to drive around looking at everything. With no added problems with TukTuks. In fact only saw 2 tuk tuks while I was there, what a relief.
The first day was spent just kicking around, eating drinking and being merry. But the next day we had plans to go and climb, swim and enjoy some of the many waterfalls up in the mountains. So fairly early we headed off to the first. The city is quite easy to Navigate and with little trouble made it to the base of a massive waterfall. Thai holiday makers, kids everywhere, and Ice cream sellers jingling their bells for attention drove us to climb the thing. To get away from evertything just mentioned. So we looked around for a path, that would get us to the top somewhere. And with no idea as to what was around the corner we headed up, and what a waterfall, massive, with 6-7 tiers. The climb was a bit arduous, with slippy slopes, rocks falling and clinging on to Tarzan style vines, we made it to the middle of the waterfall, where we could see people swimming already. (The pics are from this waterfall description.)
We managed to settle on a big flat rock, between tiers, and it was just luxury, the water-falling gave so much cool clean air/oxygen, it really felt nice to just sit there and watch the local kids leaping from real high trees, landing in about 5ft radius pools of water, I guess deep enough due to water falling constantly, but to look at seemingly shallow, with every jump a gasp, then a cheer as his head pops up. Balls of steel I reckon. We sat around there for while contemplating whether to swim and risk the loss of our camera, (you never know), so decided not to, and as the cool air chilled us out we were better off probably. Didn't stay dry for long though, as it started to pour with rain.
Climbing the rest of the water seemed to head into Indiana Jones terrritory, with little jumps, and sheer drops beneath us, using the vines to get across, we were half expecting someone to shout, "Cover your Heart Indy, Cover your heart", with Thai accent. Didn't happen though, and we made it safely to the top, where there is this wooden structure built over the first fall of the Waterfall. With a view of Chiang Mai in the distance, (see photo), and there we stayed till the rain eased off. Eventually we got up and walked to see if there was a less trechourous path, and found a car park, where we could've brought the bike. Now 2km or so away from the bike, in the rain, we were a little pissed off we didn't bring the bike up. Ha d to jump onto the back of a taxi, and hold on for dear life, as he hurtled down the hill. We had a wicked day despite the weather, and would promote Chiang Mai to all.