Desperate for beer and chocolate ...

For all you of little faith, yes we did manage three full days without a beer but, as is usual in human nature, you yearn for what you can't have and that was beer and chocolate!

So we left Chiang Mai in a songteaw for Chiang Dao Nest, feeling suitably battered and bruised but, dare I say it, "light and cleansed" only to go and undo the good work with a very refreshing Singha beer and plate of roast cashew nuts but could we find chocolate...not easily, took 24 hours of searching the local stalls and I'd even sent an SOS to Australia!

We landed ourselves in a very secluded little resort called "Chiang Dao Nest" which was right on the edge of the Chiang Dao National Park, almost towered over by Dao .... Which we had been told that we could climb ... being the energetic types that we are we made the right noises for the next day but only to be declined because the park closed on 1st April and all the guides were involved with tidying up the mountain for the season.  Perhaps a good job that we didn't as we had a few other eventful expeditions that were energetic enough.

Back to the "nest" - a cozy little place with numerous cabins in a garden setting around a central dining area, run (whilst we were there) predominantly by a very jovial And extremely helpful Thai lady called "Puk" huge menu of Thai fusion food but a little on the heavy side for every evening there so we opted to eat "Thai" at the sister outlet just down the road.

View from Chiang Dao Nest

Our cabin

The very friendly "Puk"