Hey peeps, it's Darren and Kerry here back in Thailand! Last time we were here, six weeks ago, we were both blighted with on and off illnesses. Fortunately, so far, things have been a lot better and we've been able to see some really cool things rather than being stuck in bed with fever!

Since the last update we flew from Hanoi to Bangkok with Air Asia, whom we had to pay a fairly large wad of money to for our overweight luggage! Still, it was a far cheaper option than sending it home in the post. We arrived back in Bangkok just before sundown and hailed one of the bright pink taxis (rather iconic here it appears) into the city centre, back to the all too familiar sights (ladyboys, hawkers selling croaking frogs, backpackers looking like tramps, etc.) and smells (Pad Thai, previously mentioned tramp looking backpackers body odour, etc) of Khao San Road! This time round we booked into a cheaper hotel seeing as we were only going to be there one night. We spent the evening travelling to the train station to book our train tickets for the next day and then we grabbed some Thai curry, realising how much we'd missed the spicy stuff!

The following day we wandered around killing time as our train wasn't leaving until 10p.m. and realised that we hadn't missed Bangkok too much. Thankfully the day went pretty fast and we made our way to the train station to make our escape to the beautiful North of the country. Unfortunately we couldn't book any bed tickets on the train as there were so many people travelling north for some reason so we had to make do with pretty uncomfortable seats. It was then that we realised from looking at the ticket that the lady at the counter the previous day had mis-sold the ticket and we were a day early for our seats! We explained our situation to the train conductor a minute before the train was due to depart and fortunately there were enough seats on the train vacant to accommodate us, however it did mean that at every stop we were having to move seats so that people could have the ones that they had purchased. Luckily we didn't have to move too many times and were still close to our luggage.

The journey by train to Chiang Mai ended up taking an ar*e numbing 16 hours!! A crazy amount of time to travel a relatively short distance and one that left us vowing to take the bus when it came to time for us to return to bangkok for our flight home. Despite that, the final stages of the journey were incredibly scenic as we made our way up into the mountains. We checked in to a lovely quiet and clean hotel and then went for a walk around the central part of the city. Chiang Mai is Thailands second city and boasts in excess of more than 300 temples within the municipal limits. Due to it's close proximity to the Myanmar (Burma) and Laos borders it has historically always been an important place for trade of goods and ideas. The central part of the city where we are staying is surrounded by a wide moat with small castle style structures at each corner. Within the moat are pretty fountains spraying in different shapes lending the central area quite a pretty appearance.

The following day we decided to have some more adventures and rented a motorbike from a local shop. To the west of the city the auspicious peak of Doi Suthep rises with a stunning national park surrounding it and that's where we decided to head for. The day was absolutely perfect for motorbike riding with lovely sunny weather and some wickedly winding roads that led us all the way up to an incredible lookout point across Chiang Mai and also to the Royal Family's winter palace. We parked up the bike and had a wander around the beautiful grounds, which included an incredible rose garden and it's own gently trickling waterfall along a pathway up a small forested hill. Afterwards we headed a little way back down the mountain before stopping at Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, an incredible Buddhist temple reached by climbing 306 steps, not for the faint hearted! As the sunlight was drawing to a close we headed back down the rest of the mountain and booked a cooking course for Kerry to do the next day.

The next day Kerry got up early to do her cooking course for the day while I drove around for a while on the bike and then had a nice relaxing massage. To be honest i was pretty bored and couldn't find much to do by myself and didn't fancy wandering around more temples! Meanwhile Kerry was having a brilliant time by firstly going to the local market to purchase and learn about different ingredients and then she got to make six dishes of her choice. She decided to cook chicken with cashew nuts, a massaman curry including curry paste, pad thai, hot and sour prawn soup and spring rolls. She tells me that she was pretty happy with the end results although the rest of the group she was cooking with weren't quite as keen on the hot dishes that she had made. Wimps! In the evening we drove over to a huge shopping centre over by the airport and watched The Kingdom (worth checking out!) at the cinema.

For our last full day in Chiang Mai we decided to take the motorbike and drive out towards Nam Tok Mae Sa and then loop back to Chiang Mai through Samoeng. Once again the weather was simply stunning to be out on a bike and we soon found ourselves travelling through the beautiful Mae Sa valley. I have to say that personally i'm becoming quite addicted to travelling around by bike and would love to do some more of this in the future once I return home. It's so easy to just pull over to the sde of the road when you see something of interest and along the journey we stopped to enjoy some great activities. The first place was a small snake farm (sorry sis if you're reading this), which housed some truly poisonous species including the notorious King Cobra, a large snake found in the wild here in Thailand. We wandered around looking at some of the animals and we both found ourselves agreeing that the place needed some decent investment to improve some of the enclosures and displays as some were cramped and dirty. Despite this we watched a really professional snake show there where two handlers showed the crowd the qualities that make these creatures so dangerous yet also naturally beautiful. With some sponsership and investment the place has potential to become a regularly visited attraction. Both of us got to hold and even kiss a large Python and sat within an alarmingly close proximity to the King Cobras!! Next we visited the impressive Maesa Elephant Camp, where the benefits of decent sponsership (Ripley's Believe It Or Not company) and investment were plain to see. We got to purchase sugar cane and bananas and hand feed them to some of the huge beasts, who gave us a hug with their trunks in return! We then watched the trainers walk them down to a beautiful waterfall that runs through the grounds so that they could bathe themselves in the cool water. It was incredible to watch them so close and there were even a couple of infant elephants splashing around and trying to spray water over everyone. After their bath we walked up to the elephant show ground where we got to see how dextruous these huge animals can be, including elephant football, elephants painting pictures of flowers and traditional skills of them moving huge logs. For some people it would be easy to dismiss this show of skills as being cruel or humiliating for the animals however the animals seem to be incredibly well loved and looked after by their handlers and unfortanately in Thailand their habitat is decreasing rapidly by illegal loggers and poachers who would use the animals in a much crueler way. A lot of the proceeds from the Elephant Camp go towards ensuring that the wild population of elephants in Thailand does not diminish entirely.

To finish the seemingly wildlife orientated day off, in the evening we headed 14km to the Chiang Mai Night Safari, which only opened 2 years ago and is one of only 3 zoos like it in the world with the others being in Singapore and China. We weren't sure what to expect before we arrived but we were pleasantly surprised to find the grounds immaculately presented around a large lake lit up with beautifully soft lighting and the animal enclosures thoughtfully created and presented. We took two safari trips around the grounds, one being a Predator orientated tour and the other being Savanna orientated. After the tram tours we wandered around the walking tour that encompasses the lake and seeing lots of animals that you never see in the daytime zoos making this zoo one of the best we have ever visited. We got great views of the White Bengal Tigers, Jaguars and Leopards. To finish the night there was a visually striking water, sound and laser display on the lake, which was choreographed really well.

Today we have returned our motorbike and we head off by bus a little further North East to similar sounding Chiang Rai, where we will hopefully do a two day jungle trek. We shall update you again before returning back to Bangkok. I know that this update is a bit of a long one but i've tried to make it as interesting as possible! Hope that you're all well!