Our first stop in northern Thailand was Chiang Mai, A very traditional, laid back place with plenty of cultural things to see and do. Our hostel was extremely helpful in providing all the info we needed to plan our next few days.

First up was the long awaited cooking course. We had been told by many that Chiang Mai's cooking courses were the best and that it was the best way to learn about and sample the local cuisine. We booked and were not disappointed. The next day we were picked up at 8.30am and taken to the nearby food market and shown all the ingredients used in Thai cooking and the specifics we would be cooking with later on. After wandering through the large undercover market we were then taken on to the cookery school. From around 10am to 4pm we were cooking and eating, cooking and eating. We each made 7 courses and even did some vegetable carvings. Between us we made soups, stir fries, mango and papaya salads, red and yellow curry pastes, panang and massaman curries, noodle dishes and sticky rice desserts. We returned to the hostel feeling extremely full and fat, and instead of working it off we instead decided to go for a thai massage….its a hard life!

As Ben had had a very girly day so far we ended the night with a bit of Muay Thai Boxing, which was very entertaining with several fights of different standards working up to the larger fight at the end. Very busy day.

Our second day in Chiang Mai shall go down as one of our best days travelling. We were driven out into the local countryside to an elephant care sanctuary, where we got to spend the whole day feeding, playing, riding and bathing elephants. Before being introduced to the elephants we were given a change of clothes and a very stylish straw hat. We were then given a quick lesson on elephant commands, including instructing them to move forwards, backwards, left, right etc. Eddy (the elephant guy) then took us over to meet a mother and baby elephant, we were given massive amounts of bananas to feed them with….they devoured them in minutes. We were quite nervous at first but in no time at all we were stroking them and letting them take bananas from our hand. Eddy then took us to see "Aranya", one of the largest elephants. Aranya was to be our introduction into climbing onto and riding an elephant bareback. She was very patient and waited as we each took turns to climb up on to her….Ben was up there with no problems, it took me slightly longer and I wasn't as graceful as I would have hoped to be. We both rode around on Aranya giving her the instructions we had learnt earlier. Once this was mastered it was time to head into the forest. We were given an elephant each and with a little help from the elephant carers we rode them up sandy narrow paths and into the trees. By the end of our day trekking we came to a large river where the elephants walked down the banking and into the water, carefully holding us in place by pinning our legs down with their ears. We walked along the river for a bit before the elephants lay down and we were given buckets and brushes to wash them with. What an amazing day!

The third day we went on a trip to Chiang Rai where we visited several different sights. First we went to a natural hot spring and boiled eggs. Then we went onto the White Temple, a modern artists life work showing his interpretation of heaven vs hell alongside recent history (e.g. - the angry birds crashing into the twin towers, and the Devil with George Bush and Bin Laden reflected in his eyes). While we were here we also got to see a rare natural phenomenon - the sun had a perfect rainbow encircling it. Next up we went to the golden triangle and walked up to a viewpoint to look down over the border of where Burma, Laos and Thailand all meet at a junction in a river. Our final stop was to visit a local hill tribe, where we got to go inside the village and meet the inhabitants. The ladies from this particular tribe are referred to as "Longnecks" due to the gold chains they place around their necks, which over time is added to and causes the neck to increase in length. They believe that this is very beautiful. We sat with them and spoke to some of the women and listened as one played a handmade guitar and sang a tribal song. Certainly a very different way of living.

On the fourth day we packed our bags and headed for Pai, a little town high up in the hills. We spent two nights in Pai and basically relaxed after our very busy time in Chiang Mai. Pai is very pretty and chilled out and we thoroughly enjoyed our stay in a little wooden hut set in well-kept gardens.

We returned to Chiang Mai in order to catch an overnight bus onto Bangkok.