Chiang Rai... a little bit like Sarajevo, but much nicer

We stayed an extra day in Pai because the bus to Chiang Rai was already full when we went to book it. We're now leaving tomorrow and our bus leaves at 7.00am. We had the choice of either 7.00am or 5.30am, I think we chose well.
I believe it takes about 7 hours to get to Chiang Rai from here, not because it is far, just because it has to stop at Chiang Mai for a bit. Something to do with roads.

The bus was a nightmare because there were load of yabbering Americans on the bus and some smart arse Dutch guy. They were very boring but very difficult to ignore. Then the Dutch man made everyone take a stop about 10 minutes from Chiang Rai (our destination) because he had to wee. I was particularly annoyed about this as we stopped right by the White Temple which has images of Spiderman and Keanu Reeves (as Neo) in it. I really wanted to see this temple, but the bloody Dutch pee-er ruined it for everyone!!!

Neo knows whose fault it is

Anyway, we eventually got to Chiang Rai. It looks a bit like this:

After an hour and a half of waiting at the old bus station (not the new bus station, which does not exist), a very nice lady came to pick us up and take us to our new home. Our new home totally rocked... here it is: 

We lived in the hut on the left!

Yeah, it was awesome. It was up a ridiculously steep mountain which freaked me out every time we went up or down it. Just before our place was a little village where some local folk live. I don't actually know what the people are called, but I don't think they are Thai people.

We arrived at a good time as it was these people's New Year celebrations. They basically don't do any work and just party all the time for 10 solid days. It was awesome. They have lots of music and firecrackers.

On our second day at the Bamboo Nest we decided to take a boat tour. This was basically a man in a boat who took us up the river (which was beautiful)

The boat man kept stopping along the river and insisted that we got out and walked down the road to see the local village (people whose names I can't remember).

Tentatively, we walked up the path to the village. As we walked, there were a lot of firecrackers going off very close to us.

Eventually we got to the village. A small boy who was having a shower waved to us, but everyone else ignored us mainly. We met their pigs...

Then a firecracker went off like a bomb literally 3 meters behind us (Nic says it was 10 meters behind us), but it was very scary - it like Sarajevo. So we ran away from the village.

What we saw before we ran away...

We went back to the boat man.

He took us to a bamboo bridge and another bloody village and he made us go up there too (awkward). We walked up (as we felt we had too). We waved and smiled to a few blank faces, then we walked back down to our boat.

Our boat - Nic was in charge :)

This is the other villages pig.

Then boatman took us to the hot springs, these were very nice, but the one in Pai was much cooler. They had made an actual swimming pool and filled it with hot spring water. Nic keeps calling hot springs 'warm baths' which I think is cute.

Then we basically relaxed in our awesome place on the hill for 4 days. There was no internet, but the shower was warm and clean and there was power (mainly). Nic made friends with the dogs. I eventually made friends with the smaller dog. It was a very chilled and wonderful time. The food at this place was also amazing! The lady made green curry with spaghetti and it was literally the best thing in the world. This sounds like I'm writing a TripAdvisor review, but it was just really very good.

Our view

Our view at night