Well Mr Pong kept his promise and at 10.30am we got picked up at Mountain View (the bar owned by Malcolm from Yorkshire). And oddly, although the weather has been freakishly hot, according to locals, Mr Pong insisted on playing Christmas music in his van..

Let me tell you, its very hard not to piss yourself laughing when your driving through rural Thailand villages listening to 'jingle bells'. The only thing stopping me was that I did not want to offend him, and risk pissing him off. Also I recalled that it is in fact November- not that strange at all really for him.
On our way to Si Satchanalai, we stopped off in a small village which it seemed had a very long history, and a very small and quiet museum. We were in fact the only people there. It turns out that as it is all so out of the way, not many tourists actually see it at all. So we felt quite priveliged, and the people who worked there seemed pleased just to have surprise visitors!
Anyway, tuned out to be a pretty good day. we are heading off early tomorrow to Chiang Mai, we should hopefully arrive there at about 4pm.