I am a long time Bali traveller, but after the last lot of bombings promised daughters I would go somewhere else for my holidays. Just got back from Chiang Mai, whilst it was very nice Bali is still the best. Nothing much happens in CM until 5pm,they have a fantastic night market, the quality & variety of goods sold are better than Bali but once you do all the tours available to fill in the day it's not good, we even had trouble finding food places during the day only, at night heaps of places. Luckily learnt the word for mild food, mai pet, it came in handy. It is very difficult going to a new place & trying to find your way around, but we had a good look. Our hotel was right in the middle of the night market and it was very noticeable how few Aussies were there, we only found 2 others whilst there for 8 days, heaps & heaps of Japanese, lots of Germans & French, reasonable number of Brits. The Thai people are lovely & quite industrious, they are great at recycling, natural talent in painting/sculpting & very friendly. Had a good time but that's it, back to Bali mid next year.