Secondly, we have had an apology from Mark Dennison. He has asked us to keep the email we sent private, which we will of course do, and he also asked that his photo is removed from www.electro-web.co.uk, which we also will do. The apology has gone a long way to helping us feel happier about the current ongoing situation we have with Brighton and Hove City Council, but we still feel let down. We have little faith in having our voices heard by members of the council and even less trust in the way complaints and procedures are handled. Hopefully, over time, Brighton and Hove City Council will help us resolve these issues.

As some of you might have noticed, we’re in a recession. My husband decided to retrain as a teacher a couple of years ago, and is just about to complete his first year as a (poorly paid) Newly Qualified Teacher. It’s been a tough couple of years financially, with only me earning whilst he trained, but we emptied our savings pot, and made it through. I work in the retail industry, and like almost every other sector, we’ve also felt the pinch, but hopefully the worst is behind us now. I know that many other people are in the same boat, or worse off than us, and have also had to tighten their belts to get them through difficult times.

Earlier this year, we got a bill for £300 for our portion of the bill for a new satellite aerial to be intalled. We have a terrible reception here, and have paid for cable TV fr the entire time we’ve lived here, and have an aerial on our balcony, but now we have to pay an extra £300 so that the people that don’t have cable TV can receive it. We were disgruntled to say the least, but along with a letter stating our complaint, we sent our money.

Then we got a letter saying that the fire regulations in our building have changed, and that our front door is now non-compliant. It doesn’t matter that the council fitted the front door themselves years ago, it is now defunct and has to be replaced. So we declined their offer of fitting a cheap plastic one (that others who have had it fitted say repeatedly break and are draughty) for £800 and we spent the same ammount of money on a nicer wooden one.

Then a story broke in the Argus. It said that the council were spending millions of pounds citywide on replacing lifts in it’s buildings. We were worried, but thought that it couldn’t affect us, as we’d had no letter through declaring this intention in our building. But sure enough, the next day, we got a letter telling us that we would have to pay £10,000 within the next few years to replace the lifts. We weren’t even given the courtesy of receiving this letter before it broke in the local news. Our first reaction was to get quotes from several companies (Thyssen etc) for the job in question, and the quotes came back to us at least a third cheaper, but sometimes by half. We wrote to the council, and asked why this was, and they wrote back and said because Liftec (the company that got the lift contract) offered better long term options. When we wrote back and asked them why we would need better long term care when the lifts were brand new and shouldn’t need anything other than the most basic maintenece, we were stonewalled. As we were when we wrote back after every single one of their responses asking more quetions, or arguing that “because we said so” wasn’t a valid answer.

And then once more, we got another letter telling us that we’d be paying £220 for a new lighting system throughout the building. We were upset at yet another bill being passed on to us, but were begining to feel more and more helpless. Once the lights had been fitted, and we saw how poorly they operated, (only staying on for 30 seconds, leaving us in the dark, not being sensitive enough) we decided to write one last letter. We had tried to reason with the council, and we were stonewalled. We tried to get the media involved to see if we could rouse interest in a huge, uneccesary overspend, but we failed. We tried writing to different people, but never got anywhere. We decided to try and appeal to their sensitive sides, to try and let them know how desperate we were becoming. This is the last letter we wrote:

Dear Mr Dennison

Thank you for your letter dated 15th December, which yet again made me furious by your failure to engage with me on the issues I’ve raised. I give up trying to communicate with you about this, as you appear utterly unable to talk to me on a human level about my very real and upsetting concerns about the way you deal with these issues. All I’ve had from anyone at the council is stonewalling, misdirection and legal-speak when I had hoped that someone, somewhere would just LISTEN and understand and at least try to sympathise and meet us halfway.

You don’t seem to get it, do you? This isn’t a council building. This isn’t a programme of maintenance for bricks and mortar and machinery. This is MY HOME. This is a home that I used to love. This is a home in which I met my wife, set up my adult life and have enjoyed for almost a decade. A home that has deep emotional resonance – a place of laughter and tears, a place of fun and work and joy and sadness. A place of parties and of arguments. It’s a place I hoped to bring up my children and a place where I need to feel safe and happy and secure, where I’ve spent the happiest times of my life.

The council ride roughshod over this. They choose jobs seemingly at random and over which I have no control and no say. You claim to consult, but you keep proving yourselves incapable of listening. You’re like automatons – resistance to your works is futile and everything that you do is good. The consultation is only ever which of the high costs I should pay, never whether it needs to be done and never when it should be done.

Please, just this once, try to see it from my point of view. Imagine you’re sitting in your home, and a roof contractor turns up. He tells you that your roof needs fixing. You’ve not been told this before, no-one warned you and no-one explains what the problem is. You don’t get to shop around for quotes, you don’t get to question the costs because the roof contractor blandly tells you it’s been done already and done properly and that he’s right. His answer to your every question is “I’m right, please stop asking”. He tells you that he’s not the cheapest, but there’ll be on-going maintenance. You fail understand what could possible need maintenance, because no-one you know has on-going maintenance for their homes, but tough because the contractor insists. He then does some work on your roof and hits you with a bill for £5000.

He then does the same for your TV aerial. You’ve haven’t got Sky and never want it, but he installs it anyway and charges you £300. He refuses to explain why. All the people who wanted Sky already have it, but they now have to get rid of their dishes because the contractor is about to enforce a planning law that has been ignored for 22 years.

Then he does the same for water tanks. That’ll be £3000 please. He suddenly says you need to pay for a new security door that you didn’t know was a problem. He marches you down to the timber yard and makes you buy and install a new front door. There’s works to some doors that caused an overspend on the annual maintenance. Except spending £12000 more than you estimated isn’t an overspend in the council’s world, is it?

And all of this happens at random times and each thing comes as a surprise. You might’ve just spent your savings on a holiday. Maybe you needed a new kitchen? Tough. The contractor is god and when he arrives the work is done (probably badly) and you must pay. Put it off until next year? Put it off at least until we’re out of the worst recession for 50 years? Ha! You’ll be lucky. Kerching!

Then he hits you with the big one: £10,000 please. Oh, and a couple of hundred quid for new lights. Yes, I know the old lights came on at night and light up the place and I know the lights could be replaced at any time in the next decade. But no, right after the £10,000 seems appropriate doesn’t it?

Do you not see? Do you still not get it? It just keeps coming and I have no say, no control. I’m powerless and you’re bleeding me dry. I don’t earn much money. The lift bill will wipe out my savings, and max out my mortgage. It comes on top of all the things above (and more). What happens next year? What happens when you suddenly decide to replace the perfectly serviceable windows or put down some nice new flooring? You won’t even talk to me about it, you won’t even explain or discuss or engage. You just trot out the line that everything is right and proper and the extraordinary costs are “value for money”. Well, it’s not your money is it? No wonder you don’t actually care. But it IS my money and it IS my home and I care deeply.

At the moment I can see no alternative but to sell up and leave. I’m considering my options, but the stress of a letter from the council landing on my mat is simply too much, with the worry that the next one will drive me into debts I can’t afford. But if I do decide to leave, I want you to know this: YOU will have driven me out of a home that I love. YOU will have forced me out because you refuse allow me the courtesy of discussion on a human level. You’ve turned the best decision I ever made in moving here into a stressful nightmare.

In short: you’re turning the home that I love into somewhere I’m beginning to hate. And that is unforgivable.

Merry Christmas

We finally got our response from Mr Dennison today, as a message via Twitter. It simply said

you will be glad to know i have left the council now so you can moan to someone else… have fun

So that’s it. I’ve sobbed and I’ve got angry and now I feel helpless. If it is considered “moaning” to try and explain to someone our fear that we’ll lose our home over unreasonable, unneccesary, expensive bills turning up on our doorstep, then there really is nothing else I can do.

N.B – if you want to read my husband’s accounts of what’s been happening, and see the tweets themselves please go to www.electro-web.co.uk (his own website).

THERE IS AN UPDATE TO THIS STORY, PLEASE SEE THIS LINK http://pennyforthem.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/update-the-day-brighton-council-told-me-to-moan-to-someone-else/

My husband and I (who will be coming with me and also trying to find work) are trying to decide where to go. There are several factors in this. I would like to teach scuba diving. He is a qualified science teacher. Ideally, we would find somewhere where we can both do what we are qualified to do. Once we have accumulated a bit of wealth, and we’re happy where we are, we might want to set up some kind of business – a cafe/ bar or perhaps a guesthouse. There are other factors to take into account too – such as the ease of getting back to the UK in case of an emergency, the stability of living in a different country – for example, the chance of a natural disaster, or the political environment. We have pets, and if we stayed in the EU, we could take them with us, and again, if we stayed within the EU, being granted the permission to work, or to have a bank account wouldn’t be a problem.

We have three main (very broad!) areas which we are considering. For the safety and the stability, we’re considering Malta. An EU country, cheap to get to/from the UK, a good climate and good year-round diving. It is more expensive to live there, but it’s relative, as we’d be getting paid more too. There aren’t really any other options in Europe, other than possibly Cyprus, but there is less opportunity to dive year-round there.

The second option is Asia – Thailand in particular is a place I know well, and feel comfortable in, there is plenty of diving and there are plenty of school. But, there has been much political upheaval in the past few years, work permits can be tricky to get, and owning your own land as a foreigner is difficult. There is of course a language barrier too, along with cultural differences to take into account. Of course, it doesn’t just have to be Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines are all famous for their dive sites, but there is less potential for earning money as an instructor, as fewer people travel there.

Our third option is moving to Central America. It is somewhere we’ve both been, we’re both familiar with the language, and the diving is spectacular. If we chose somewhere that more Americans went on holiday to, rather than backpackers went to, it’s possible to earn good money as a dive instructor. The downside to living there is that it can be costly to get to/from that area back to the UK.

The truth is, that depending on where we end up, one of us will probably suffer. Either the diving is compromised, or the teaching is, as the places that great diving occurs tends to be more remote, and the great teaching tends to be in large-sized towns or cities. Don’t get me wrong, it sounds as though I’m complaining, and I’m really not. We’re so lucky to be able to make this choice – it’s just that we have so many options!

Of course, there are many other places that have great diving, and hold great opportunities, we’ve considered places like Sri Lanka, Egypt, Mozambique, Venezuela, Florida and places in between. With so many different points to weigh up, it may just be easier to stick a pin in a map and go from there…

More specifically, When I had just turned 19, I moved into this flat (apartment) as a lodger with a man that I eventually went on to marry. It was my first home. I’d lived away from my family home before, but had never felt comfortable, never felt bothered about how my room was decorated or how clean the bathroom was. This time it was different. There are 45 flats in this building, and I live on the 9th floor. The communal areas aren’t all that lovely, and the slow, old lift that creaks it’s way up to the 9th floor doesn’t fill you with joy, and even then, when you step out onto the landing that we share with three other neighbours, you might see it as dingy. Our flat is the one with the odd door – all the others have nice white front doors, but ours is the bright red one.

Once you open the front door, you’re aware of a feeling of calm. You walk along the long, smurf-coloured hallway, past the two bedrooms and the bathroom and into our big living room, and if it’s a nice day, your breath might be taken away by the view from our living room window – a view that stretches right accross the city, you can count the famous landmarks and than look right out to sea. I know our flat like the back of my hand. I know where each chip in the paint is, the sound the bathroom door makes when you lock it, the noise the wind makes against the window when it’s stormy outside and the location of all of the items crammed into each cupboard.

What I don’t know is beyond my front door. What I don’t know is how each of the 44 other people or families feel about their home, if they love it as much as I do, what they can see from their windows, or how each flat is decorated. I don’t know how they came to live in their flat – some are owned by the council, and others, like ours, is owned by ourselves. I mentioned the creaky old lift earlier, when in fact there are two. The first one goes to the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th and 11th floors, whilst the other lift services the floors in between. This means that I rarely get to see the people that live on the even floors, unless we walk in the front door together. I know many of the people that use my lift by sight, and I will smile or nod when I see them in the street, but I don’t know their names.

I know of a man that moved into this building when as soon as it was first built in the 60s, and I know of another woman who has ended up in her flat, but is Canadian. I know the routine of the old man on the first floor that takes his dog for a walk at 7am every morning, and I can occasionally hear the man who lives above us pottering around his flat, and I know that the lady underneath us is a bit mad.

I’ve decided to try and change the fact that most of the people in this building are complete strangers. I’ve always thought about how great it would be to write a book about the lives of the people that have come to live under the same roof as me. I want to find out how everyone came to live in this building, where they lived before, where they were born. So finally, I have decided to write this book, because not only do I think it’s important to get to know my neighbours, but because I think that the people that live here show a real cross section of Brighton society, the people that make up this town that I love so much, the people generations older than me, generations younger than me, people from the same culture as me and people from cultures that I’d love to hear more about.

Finally, it’s time for me to start writing about my corner of the world.

I moved to Koh Tao to do my PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor course, and all that it entailed. Koh Tao has many, many dive centres, and before I got to the island, I’d narrowed it down to three. Within two days, I’d realised who I wanted to do the course with, and within three, I’d arranged to transfer the fees to Buddha View diving centre and began diving. They had nice boats, decent equipment, competitive rates and best of all, a great social scene. Diving is a very social activity, and it’s important to get along with the people that you work with. I began fun diving immediately, and although the elusive whale shark avoided me, I had a great time diving and a great time socialising and I met a whole host of brilliant people that made me feel very at home and very loved.

The kinship between myself and these people probably has a lot to do with the fact that we all seem to be misfits back in the UK. Not able to stick at anything, or maybe just perhaps dreaming of a life change that will free them from their currents lives, or just trying to find their way, trying to find their niche. Whatever the reason, everyone I met had a reason for not wanting to be back in their home countries, and were united by our love of diving and our wish to include diving in our everyday lives.

Island life has its ups and downs, and as everyone who has lived on a small island knows, everyone knows everyone else’s business (and yes, that’s normally down to me passing on information to others!), but in the same way that everyone knows who slept with whom, or who’s fallen out with whom, if someone’s had a bad day, there is always someone that will have a drink with you and take your mind off your troubles.

I seem to have known this more than anyone, particularly during my Instructor Development Course, which very tough on all that participate, and I was swinging wildly between elation and hope for my future to despair that I’d fail miserably at what I was doing at that I’d never get to fulfil my dream. On every occasion that I felt down, there was someone that was willing to give me words of encouragement, or to give me a hug or buy me a drink.

Normally, this blog is more about the places that I’ve been to, but for a change, I want this blog post to be a big thank you. I’m starting a new chapter of my life now, buoyed by the fact that I’m now a PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor, buoyed by the fact that I’ve found confidence, and realised new goals for myself, and I’m certain that without the wonderful people that crossed my path on Koh Tao, it wouldn’t have been possible.
So here’s to the wonderful people I’ve met over the past few months, I couldn’t have done it without your support. Thank you.

Landing at Kuala Lumpur’s LCCT airport (one of four servicing the city), I found that I was no less than 80km away from the city centre, and that it would cost 74 Ringitt (RM) to get to my hotel. An hour and a half later I checked into my slightly shabby hotel in the Chow Kit area of the city after negotiating traffic that would rival Bangkok’s, looked out of the window to see an incredible skyline.

That evening I decided to go for a walk and see where I ended up. The sun had just set, and as Kuala Lumpur is 60 percent Muslim, and it was Ramadan, many people were breaking their fasts and heading to mosques. The call to prayer could be heard coming from many different directions, and making the streets eerily quiet. I walked though residential areas, and night market areas, and street food areas. I walked past mosques and Hindu temples and Chinese temples and eventually ended up in front of the breathtaking Petronas Towers in the Kuala Lumpur City Centre.

After getting something to eat in the mall that is situated between the two towers, I took a taxi back to my hotel. The taxis in Kuala Lumpur are something of a mystery to me, particularly as it’s normally very easy to flag down a Taxi in Bangkok and it’s rare that the driver tries to barter with you, or refuses to go on the meter. In Kuala Lumpur, I quickly found that getting taxi to stop was nearly impossible for reasons unbeknown to me, and to then manage to get the driver to use the meter was even more difficult. The regular two colour taxis going around the city have big signs stuck all over them saying that it’s illegal for the driver not to use the meter and that if caught, the driver and the passenger could be fined, but this didn’t seem to deter the drivers from trying to charge a much higher rate for a journey. The blue “executive” cabs charge twice as much, and are normally happier about putting the meter on.

The next morning I decided to go back to the Petronas Towers and see if I could book to go on the bridge that connects the two towers 170m up, and then on to 88th floor of one of the towers. I decided to use public transport to get there, seeing as taxis although cheap when you could get them on the meter, seemed to be more hassle than they were worth. This is what I thought before I used the skytrain to get to the towers. You cannot get to the towers directly by skytrain, so I had to take the skytrain three stops, then transfer to the tube (subway) at that station. Except that the stations were a few hundred metres apart and across some very busy roads!

I eventually got to the towers and was told that there were tickets available for the skybridge that afternoon, but the trips to the 88th floor were sold out. I brought the skybridge ticket (RM10) and decided to go to the KL Menorah, which is about 30m shorter than the towers, but would still offer me a great view of the city. The Menorah ticket cost RM40, and there was a choice of a few other attractions which you’d be able to see for free if you presented the ticket, but I didn’t have time to go and see these. The Menorah is the world’s 4th tallest communications tower in the world, and does offer fantastic views over the huge city and out to the mountains beyond.

From the Menorah, I decided to go and visit the Museum of Islamic Art, which I’d been told was a must-see. I wasn’t disappointed. After the huge hustle and bustle of the middle of the city and the busy tourist attractions that I’d spent the morning wandering around, walking into the cool, quiet and airy building was incredibly relaxing. The tickets were RM10, and worth it for the serenity alone. The building itself is a piece of art, with huge decorated domes above each hall and fountains and pools outside reflecting light around the rooms. The museum showcases Islamic art in forms from richly decorated pages from the Qur’an, to coins, to clothing and cloth worn during prayer time, and by the time I came out I felt hugely refreshed and ready to face the busy city once again.

I ate a fantastic curry in one of the food courts that cost only RM7, and then headed over to the Petronas Towers again to go for my tour. My group was shepherded into a room where a video was shown about the building of the Petronas towers and all of the records that it broke at the time, and then we took the huge lift up to the 42nd floor. We were told that the bridge wasn’t rigidly attached to each tower to allow for the movement of each tower in high winds or earthquakes, and then we took our first shaky steps out across. Once you get used to the height, it showed another great perspective over the city and you can look at the pretty landscaped park just behind the towers.

As it was now later in the afternoon, I decided to do the walk suggested by the Lonely Planet that shows off Chinatown’s assets. True to form (I have never managed to completely follow one of the suggested walks in any city) I got a bit lost, and took in some other unexpected sights as well as the covered markets and busy streets and ornate temples of the area. From there I manged to get a skytrain back directly to Chow Kit and timed my exit from the station to coincide with a huge storm.

The huge storm raged for most of the evening, and most of the next day too, so I did some shopping in one of the many malls that the city had to offer. While I was having a cup of tea and resting my feet, a group of Korean students came up to me and asked me where I was from. When I replied that I was from England they all beamed and told me that they were giving me a present, and they gave me a pretty organza scarf. As I was wondering what the catch was, they asked for a photo with me, took it and then they walked off. I was left feeling a bit dazed and confused and checking that I still had all of my belongings, which I did, when I realised that it was just a genuinely nice act of random kindness, which put a huge smile on my face for the rest of the day. I just wish that I got a photo of them too.

That evening I decided to venture out for a cocktail in one of the many rooftop bars and go out and have a decent Malaysian meal. I headed to the Luna Bar, on the top of the Regency Pacific Hotel, which offered a beautiful view through the glass balconies of the sunset over the city. It was here that I realised that the cocktail that I was drinking, which was by no means expensive by European standards, had cost more than any meal that I’d brought since I’d arrived. When I totted up how much I’d spend over the previous few days, I was amazed at how cheap everything had worked out to be.

Trip Advisor had recommended Enack restaurant as one of the best places to eat in Kuala Lumpur, and so I headed to the unlikely location of the basement of the Starhill Gallery mall. It was the busiest restaurant around by far, and I decided to try the mixed satay plate and then the curry taster plate. I wasn’t disappointed, and left feeling very full and happy.

And that was the extent of my trip to Kuala Lumpur. I’ve been left feeling that I’d hardly scraped the surface of the huge city. I didn’t get to venture into the Indian quarter of the city, and nor did I make it to the famous Batu caves, so I’m thinking that in the not too distant future that I’ll have to have a few more Malaysian adventures.

There are quirks to this island though. It being a huge tourist destination (though I’ve yet to see any straw donkeys), there is a real mix of culture here, but I wasn’t expecting was there so few Thais. The few times that I’ve tried to speak my (limited) Thai, I’ve been met with blank looks. I’ve gone back to the phrasebook feeling very confused and after this happening several times, I spoke to someone about it. Apparently the Burmese migrant community here is huge, and the common language that most people speak is English. Thai seems to get you nowhere here.

One of the things I love most about Thailand is the abundance of temples, even in the busiest section of a city, you can seek solace in the serenity of a temple- but not here. Apparently there is only one temple on Koh Tao, and I’ve yet to find it. I’ve been trying to put my finger on why this unsettles me slightly, and the only thing that I can reason is that temples are such a big part of so many Thai people’s lives, that it feels distinctly un-Thai not to have them dotted around every town.

The island has only been continuously inhabited since 1933, starting off as a prison island, and a few people from neighbouring islands came to set up colonies at about the same time. It only became popular with travellers in the 80s and since then the population has grown massively along with the construction of hotels, guesthouses, restaurants and bars that goes hand in hand with the tourist industry.

Now it is an island that dives by day and parties by night. Sairee beach is the famous party hotspot, but drinking seems to as much as a hobby as diving does around here, and it takes some getting used to.

I think I’ve been spoiled rotten with the diving that I’ve done all over the world, but I have to say that I’m disappointed with the diving on Koh Tao. I had been warned that the dives sites were busy, because the island’s notoriety for offering cheap dive courses brings many people here, but I wasn’t expecting the poor visibility and what I regard as a poor selection of marine life. Yes, there are huge shoals of fish (which are readily being harvested by fishing boats close by), but it’s difficult to see anything remarkable to point out. If you’re lucky you might see an eel, and if you’re even luckier you might see a turtle, but from what I can gather the marine life here is in rapid decline. Whether that’s from overfishing at the surface, the decline of the coral, or just the fish not being keen on so many divers invading their habitat is debatable.

All of these things are so at odds with the Thailand that I know, it makes me feel that I could be on any party island, regardless of what coast it is closest too. I feel that the island is suffering an identity crisis.

Once I’ve qualified my course which enables me to be a scuba instructor, I’m thinking of moving on again, but this time I’m thinking somewhere a bit further afield. I’m still not quite sure where yet, but the world is my oyster.

At 4.30am on Saturday morning, when most people I know wouldn’t have even gotten to bed yet, I was getting up and leaving for a journey to a place I’d never been to, but had heard so much about. Koh Tao is a small island in the Gulf of Thailand, and although large compared to many of the islands that dot Thailand’s coast, it only measures about 21 square kilometres and is famous for being a centre of diving. It was a long bus journey from Bangkok to Chumphon, which is the port which boats to Koh Tao leave from. After being stuck on the bus for six and a half hours, it was a refreshing change on be sitting in the sun on the deck of the catamaran that would take us to Koh Tao and others on to Koh Phangan and then onto Koh Samui (I used the Lomphraya company, and the journey cost 1050 baht). A happy hour and a half was sat drinking beer and chatting to others that were going to spending time on the island.

As Koh Tao came into view, I was struck by how mountainous the island was and how beautiful and crystal clear the water was. As I disembarked there was the usual scrum of people trying to get you to sign up with a dive centre or get you to go to a particular hotel, but I ducked out of this and decided to find a cheap central hotel, and I could explore and decide which dive centre I wanted to try at a more leisurely pace.

Once I’d checked in and had a snooze, I set out and explored the streets of Mae Haad, the main town on the island where the port is located. The streets are fairly narrow with no cars and a few pick up trucks which are used to transporting goods around the island and double up as taxis when needed. Everyone else gets about using mopeds, bicycles or on foot.

So the next day, I decided to do as everyone else was doing and hire a moped. The going rate for this seems to be between 150 and 250 baht a day, and after a quick lesson, I was on my way. The roads connecting Mae Haad to Hat Sairee and Chalok bay are all relatively good, but as I went further off the beaten track the roads got progressively narrower and less decent. Which was when two Spanish guys on an ATV came hurtling round a corner and forced me off the road and down into a deep sandy ditch. Ouch. I escaped without major injury bar cuts and bruises all down my right side, but I was shaken and went back to the town very cautiously indeed. Once I’d cleaned myself up, I found out that this type of injury is very common here, and the cuts and scrapes that people bear are known as “Koh Tao tattoos”. You have been warned.

I wasn’t brave enough to go back out on the bike again that afternoon, so I caught a lift in one of the pick up trucks that was heading to Chalok bay to go and visit a dive centre I’d heard good things about. Buddha View Dive Centre lived up to its reputation with friendly staff and a great atmosphere, and it’s where I’ve decided to take my scuba diving instructor’s course in just over a month’s time. So today has been spent getting back on the dreaded moped and spending the morning looking for an apartment in the area. accommodation seems to vary massively, and I found a really beautiful apartment that’s about double my original budget, but that I’ve totally fallen in love with. Everywhere else that I’ve seen pales in comparison and I’m trying to decide if I should let my head or my heart decide this time…

There are hundreds of guesthouses and hotels in Chiang Mai, but as I was only staying for one night, and I fancied relaxing by the pool before meeting some friends later in the evening, I chose to stay at the centrally located Top North Hotel by Tha Phae Gate. It is slightly over priced, but it’s quiet despite its great location.

I was picked up by my friends outside the beautiful Wat Phra Singh later that day and we went by motorbike to a great restaurant opposite the airport in a quiet residential area lived in mostly by airport staff. The food was really great, and the setting was beautiful- we sat on a verandah overlooking a lake which picked up the breeze on the hot night.

When I was dropped back off at my hotel after a really great evening catching up, I still wasn’t tired, I decided to go back to my old haunt; the THC Rooftop Bar. I was very pleased to see that it hadn’t changed a bit- through a maze of corridors and stairs and eventually you pop up onto the fourth floor of a bar decorated in UV paint and open to the stars. I settled in with a few beers and looked out over the beautiful city and over to the little lights of Doi Suthep overlooking the city from a mountain and I was very happy to be back- I don’t call Chiang Mai my second hometown for nothing.

Alas, it was a brief stay there this time, and the next morning I caught my bus to Chiang Rai. I was amazed at the level of luxury on the Green Bus- for 268 baht I had a huge squashy reclining seat, a screen to watch movies on or to play console games on, free water and snacks. I was almost sad that my journey wasn’t longer (three hours) except for the freezing aircon!

I arrived in a rainy Chiang Rai, and easily found Baan Bua, the little guesthouse that I was staying at, a few streets away from the bus station. What I hadn’t realised is that most of Chiang Rai is a few streets away! Despite it’s incredibly historic roots in Thailand’s history, and being one of the oldest towns, there’s very little to show for it.

Because of the rain, I didn’t get to explore the town when I arrived, deciding instead to relax at the lovely guesthouse and read. Baan Bua was extremely reasonably priced and set around really pretty gardens with wonderful owners and a perpetually delicious smell coming from the kitchen.

I met up with a friend that I last saw in Chiang Mai six years ago when we were studying together, and it was so great to see him. He’s lived in Chiang Rai for the past four years, and so he was appointed my tour guide for the next few days. We started the tour in Coconuts on Jetyod Road (most of the bars are located on this road- it’s the Chiang Rai equivalent to Khao San Road), and after some food and a few beers there, we wandered over to the night market.

At the heart of the night market is what’s at the heart of most Thais; the food market! There was every conceivable type of food for sale in this area, including a mexican foodstall, which I was very surprised to see! It had a great community atmosphere, and as it was the night before a long weekend, people were milling about and being merry and having a drink and generally relaxing.

We then went to a great cocktail bar by the (incredibly gaudy) colour changing clock, and sank a few cocktails there, before moving back to Jetyod to The Peace Bar, a great bar with a penchant for playing reggae with a strong smell of weed from the back garden…

The next morning my tour guide turned up and took me for breakfast (he had curry, I had coffee!) and then we set off on the back of his motorbike for the White Temple (Wat Rong Khun). This temple, located about 13km out of Chiang Rai was designed by the artist Chaloemchai Khositphiphat and work started on it in 1998 and parts of the complex are still being built. It’s a very unconventional temple, for not only it all painted white whereas most other temples traditionally tend to be gold and red, there is a particular way of walking around the temple which is supposed to symbolise the cycle of rebirth. At the entrance you have to walk past strange, skeletal statues and a pit of hands that are reaching towards you, and then you walk above the evil, over a bridge and into the temple. The walls of the temple are astonishingly detailed, and more detail continues to be added. Keep an eye out for Michael Jackson, Predator and flying MacDonald’s cartons…

In another part of the complex is a gallery of Chaloemchai Khositphiphat’s work, and it’s well worth a wander through it. There are absolutely stunning pictures from the surreal to the scary from this very talented artist who is obviously adored by many. If you haven’t got the several thousand dollars spare to buy one of the limited edition prints you can always pick up a postcard of your favourite picture from the gift shop on your way out…

From the temple we decided to ride out to Chiang Rai beach and spend the afternoon relaxing in the shade. Yes, you read me right, I wrote ‘beach’. Despite being landlocked and the nearest sea being nearly 1000km away, Chiang Rai has created an area next to the river of huts on stilts which give good shade and catch a cool breeze, and if the mood takes you (it didn’t) you can go and swim in the river. Keirse and I spent a happy afternoon drinking the local whiskey, catching up and watching the sun go down.

The next morning I awoke to rain again, and was so happy that we’d had such perfect weather the day before to do our sightseeing. I needed to be back in Bangkok again by the evening, and so I’d decided to fly back to Bangkok. I used Orient Air and the flight only cost 1800 baht, which I’m sure could be even cheaper if you booked further in advance.

I definitely need to spend a bit more time in Chiang Rai. I didn’t really explore any of the temples in the town, and the countryside is so close that it would be great to spend a weekend exploring the area by bicycle. Given how much cheaper it is up there, it’s also a way of saving a bit of money!