Greetings all!

We are in Chiang Mai and have been since Saturday. We love it here! A bit touristy as most of the bars and restaurants have western food and drink (i.e. they have pubs called 'The Queen Vic' and 'The Red Lion'. However the shopping here has got to be the best we've seen so far...we went to the night bazaar last night and the street market just carried on for miles in all four directions at a cross roads. Heaven! The stalls are packed with everything from shiny jewelery and gems to bags and clothes to food to pocket knives, carved ornaments etc. Dan was bored so i left him in the pub while i wandered round (although i had to report back every hour so he could make sure i was ok). Dan has 'baddy foos' on his hand coz he forgot the ceiling fan was on and when taking his tshirt off raised his hands a bit too high!! nothing broken or sliced off but a deep cut and a lot of bruising resulted. lol.

Gonna find out how to get to the zoo today so we can get a picture of a giant panda for Georgia and a monkey picking his nose for Tom, and a hippo for U.Sam! Yesterday we went to the Buddhist temple and signed up for a 24hour mediation retreat next Tuesday. It doesn't cost anything but they expect a donation which i'm now fretting on how much to give! (such a woman). Dan is still deciding whether to do it or not. (I think he will).

We have also seen day treks for 700 baht which include bamboo rafting, white water rafting, 1.30hr of our long awaited elephant ride,and visits to 2 different hill tribes (long kneck and big ears as they are so delightfully called around here!), and a swim at a waterfall too. Seems like a bargain, and i think they may be more expensive than that somehow but we will see. We are definitely going to do it though.

I'm (hay) still deciding on whether to do a Thai cooking course. We have seen people walking around with baskets in groups with a guide buying their ingredients at the local markets and it looks like good fun so maybe i will. We also found a yoga place that does drop-in sessions every day mornings and evenings for an hour and half for about 3 pound a session. They also do meditation on Thursdays for a small donation so may go to that too. We've been to all the book shops in Chiang Mai pretty much and still cant find the secret, so may order it off Amazon as we are here for 2 weeks.

So far thats all we got to tell you, and havent really got any pictures either so will update you again soon. We are going to try and write more frequent and smaller blogs from now on coz it takes too long and we forget stuff!

Mum they have loads of stuff in the night market to get you but i dont know what you'd like. Was thinking of getting you a jade Buddha necklace (in a meditation posture). They also have really pretty bags here one of which i bought yesterday so ill post a picture up and if you like it i'll barter to get you one too! We want to send some more things home anyway as we want to buy some cute salt and pepper shakers that are everywhere here and some other things so let me know.

bye for now,

Hayles and Dan xxxx