been a while since posting on here. just to say we are still here with great food and bargain rooms in the heart of the Old City, on Ratchadamnoen Rd , Chiang Mai.
all our rooms are spacious , clean and comfortable. from 100 baht a night for our single room to 250 for a huge room with 2 kingsize double beds and a great view , you cant go wrong.
For full info, booking and photos, plus live blog and travel logs on trips around chiang mai and the rest of thailand go here.

for photos from all over thailand go here

ROOMS CHIANGMAI

Our rooms are now available here at The Brick Road Cafe in Chiang_Mai. If you are looking for a clean, tidy room, with a nice view at a budget price, then look no further. All our rooms are newly furnished and spacious. Chiang_Mai is a great place to stay and your choice of rooms is vast. We are English / Thai run and offer a friendly atmosphere and great restaurant facilities.

Please note that our other site, www.travel-and-life-in-thailand.co.uk is experiencing technical problems at the moment but should be back online very soon. Thankyou for your patience.

Book your room here in Chiang_mai now. We only have 6 rooms so get in quick.

Open For Business, Don't Pass Us By

so we are now open for business:), as of the 11th we have been officially open and have our first customer who is stopping for a month.
Look in again soon for photos of all our rooms.:)

If you are of a mind please give a prayer for my friends grandmother who is sick in hospital right now. thanks

Doi Inthanon and home for The Sunday Market.

it was lovely waking up to the peace of our lakeside bungalow near Chom Thong. determined to make the most of our last day we got on the road again by 9.30am. we headed up towards Doi Inthanon, bearing off to the left to Mae Klang Waterfall. Here there is a large parking area and food stalls , with covered dining areas next to the stream from the waterfall, before you actually enter National Park. we grabbed some breakfast there. but then headed back round to the Doi Inthanon National Park entrance and paid , once again 200 baht for me, 40 baht for Boon. This allows you access to anywhere in the Park apart from the summit and Temple, full access costs 400 baht.
we were basically on the waterfall hunt and and got to see to spectacular falls....Siriphon and Wararaitcha, hope i've got those names right.
The first, Siriphon was a look only one, with no access to the water, just a viewing platform.
Wararaitcha, was even more spectacular and you could find a spot to sit at the watersedge at the bottom of the waterfall, a little downstream, and even take a dip if you were brave or stupid enough to endure the cold water and strong currents. Of course we are very stupid and went in to cool off, great fun!
But after the stunning beauty of it all , what we realy wanted was to chill out for a while and get some prolonged water play somewhere a little less intimidating. and for that it was back down to Mae Klang where we spent a very nice afternoon, much of it in the water , along with many many thai and a few other farang.
we left there at 5pm and were back at the cafe for the sunday market by 6.30pm.
sundays costs.
fuel..100 baht
breakfast..125
National Park ..240
lunch.....320
total.....785

total trip costs....for two people...7,720 baht all in.

saturday..nearly done the Mae Hong Song Loop.

spent alot of time sleeping yesterday and my stomach still felt pretty rough this morning. still , determined to get the most out of this holiday we got on the road by around 10am and after picking up more imodium, headed off to Obluang. the roads were alot easier and the views much less spectacular. until we reached Obluang at around midday.
it was 200 baht for me on entry, 40 baht for Boon. it is a visually stunning place and i may well go back for a camping holiday in the future. unfortunately the resort right at the entrance is apparently no loger operating. so after spending time relaxing in the beauty of the park next to the mountain river, we headed off again in search of our next place to stay. The road on from Obluang follows the river for quite some way and the road is reasonably flat, making for a very pleasant journey. we considered finding a place for a swim in the river but , as lovely as it looked it also had a very obvious strong current and the complete lack of any locals swimming anywhere put me off the idea.
after checking out one resort just down from Obluang and deciding it was to dead looking, we decided to carry on to the Doi Inthanon area.
we are now booked into a quiet Thai resort 7km out of a town called Chom Tong ( i think, will correct tomorrow).
the town is pretty non-discript but does ahave a very beautiful temple, a bustling food stall area in the centre and a home where you can get Thai massage from blind practioners in the day time.

fridays costs
room 500 baht
bike repair..80 +20 tip
food and drink......350
medicine ..56
internet..10
total 1016

saturdays costs.
breakfast...200
fuel..200
room 400
dinner .. 240
national park..240
extra food and drinks and cigarettes..200
total..1480

Mae Hong Song was a nice place to be for a short stay, beautiful around the lake and very quiet. wednesday night we went for food at a bar near the lake. the name of the bar escapes me but they did have a pool table and a 'Jam Spot" corner for musicians, of which we saw none. we ordered fish and chips and american fried rice and waited about 40 minutes for the fish and chips and another 20 for the american fried rice. the quality of the food was no better than the service and so as you can imagine not on any reccomendation list.
thursday morning i got up early and went for breakfast at a Thai place, diagonally opposite the 'CrossRoads' bar. They were very pleasant and the food was great, both quality and value.
went back and got Boon up and we actually on the road by around 9.30am.
what can i say, the twistiest, most spectular stretch of road yet. So many stunning views. Hard work with all the up and down of it, but well worth it.
we bumped into an italian family doing the same route on two motorcys, at a rest stop. from there we sort of stuck pretty close through the mountains to the next food stop and onto Mae Chaem.
Mae Chaem is a very quiet place with very little to speak of except a couple of resorts.
we have booked into The Pongsara resort and have a very nice large wooden raised bungalow, with fridge and tv.
we were only going to stop one night. eating at the resort and very tired from the ride we turned in early again.
unfortunately this morning i awoke to a very bad case of bad stomach along with the aftereffects of far too much sun on my head yesterday. from my sick bed i got Boon to book us in for a second night and stayed in bed till midday.
once up there was a problem with the bike to get sorted, in that the clutch cable snapped as we pulled into the resort last night. luckily there was a repair shop just down fronm the resort and they came and fixed it for 80baht.
by the time we got that sorted and i had got imodium from the local pharmacy it was nearly 4pm . we did head of in search of a waterfall but turned back after half an hour, deciding to rest for today and head off to Op Luang tomorrow morning.

extra costs from wednesday...dinner 310 baht....drink 10..internet 17 + 30 from tuesday

thursday costs......
breakfast....60 baht
fuel...290
food and drinks on the way....276
room...500
drinks..45
dinner...240

total....1411

day 2 of Mae Hong Song Loop trip.

in the end we were so worn out by the days travel that once i finished in the internet shop we returned to our room and had an early night.
i was up at around 8am this morning and after getting Boon up we left our guest house in search of breakfast before heading of to Mae Hong Song.
we selected a lovely looking place which appeared to be called Forestry 33rd.
Comments on this place...well first of all , don't go there if you are in a hurry to get anywhere, the service was extremely slow, and we were the only customers.
Also maybe an idea to spend time being very specific with your order. i ordered fried tofu with mushroom and chilli. i got fried tofu and veg but not a mushroom in sight, but that said i have to say that the food was delicious and portion wise, very good value.
we said goodbye to Pai at around 10am and headed out toward Mae Hong Song.
the roads were even more twisting than up to Pai and steeper, resulting in use of 2nd and 1st gear occassionally. made a few stops to rest the bike, catch the ever more stunning views and one food stop.
we nearly didnt get to the food stop when we came round a corner to be met by a line of traffic , stuck due to a truck load of long concrete posts having become dislodged on a hairpin, almost completely blocking the road.
luckily there was enough room for bikes to squeeze past and go under the posts that were bridging the hairpin.
shortly after passing that hazard we stopped at a motorbike workshop for a much needed oil change and then on a little further to a large rest stop with cafe stalls and a park where they have a stream and cave full of some amazing big blue fish.
after eating there and feeding the fish we finished the journey to Mae Hong Song getting here at around 4pm.
Mae Hong Song is also a beautiful place with a lake and lakeside Temple. we have a guesthouse room on the lakeside road next to the Temple, again very basic , but clean, tidy , own shower room and even tv in the room.
theres lots of food stalls round the lake so we'll probably spend time there this evening, im about to go find Boon now.
additional costs yesterday
snack food.... 40 baht.

todays expenses
coffee...20 ; breakfast ..130......bike oil change..220....lunch...240....coffee..90
guest house room.....300 ....snacks and drinks 110.
total 1110