Hi. I am now in Northern Thailand in the much calmer and cooler (relative to Bangkok, but I think most places are calmer and cooler than Bangkok) Chiang Mai.

We had to take an overnight train to get here which I think the three of us agree is by the far the best way to travel. We tried to be cheap and got second class non-airconditioned upper bunks, but it was still ten times better than travellng by plane. It is quite realxing being rocked to sleep in your little curtained off high up bubble imagining the countryside go by (for some reason I kept imagining cutting through terrifyingravines and crossing 100 metre high bridges, but when we woke up and went down to look out the window the landscape was a lot less dramatic) The only bad thing about the train ride was that the railway station didn't sell cooly fresh so we had to buy nestle water which tasted disgusting. It wasn't cool and refreshing at all.

We did have alot of fun trying to cut up the crazy fruit we had bought the morning before at the floating market (which involved a long disorganised 'tour' from Bangkok but was worth it when we got there). Sitting on opposite bunksthrowing weird billiard shaped fruits (Which apparaently are called mangosteen) and pasing the kinife back and forth was not the safest way to eat breakfast. By the end we had mango juice everywhere and my pocket knife lookerd as though it had killed and tortured a small creature. I also got a strange look from the guard as I sat legs bent on my bunk cleanning my knife lovingly.

When we got to Chiang Mai we were taken to our hotel which is very nice for what we're paying for it but the woman who runs is an an evil personified in overly friendly form. She entices you in with smiles and by learning your name (although I have become Chara and Sylvia is Sofia) before taking all your money ('but I got you the big meal, the normal too small'). She also turns the air conditing off so that you assume it is broken until you call to complain and it suspiciously comes back on right at that moment. It has now become a full-blown war with her trying as hard as she can to get us to let her 'help' while we try equally hard to avoid her schemes, all of this done with as many smiles as possible from both sides.

It's Sylvia's birthday so we plan to spend the rest of the day seeing some temples and drinkintg the afternoon away with Singha, the cooly fresh of thai beer.