So up next was the small northern city of Chiang Rai where we decided to throw ourselves into a Thai cookery class to learn something new to add to our growing list of kitchen specialities that currently ranges from a mean beans on toast through to a delicious cheese and bean toastie! After meeting our tutor called 'Tik' who turned out to be possibly the most enthusiastic and energy filled 63 year old that you will ever meet (and I've worked in America), we duly visited the local fresh market. Tik trooped us around getting us to order different quantities of food in Thai whilst pointing out some seriously weird ingredients that we were happy were not on the list (they eat everything from the animals & I mean everything!). After our polite refusal on her 3rd attempt at trying to get us to eat ant eggs whilst the ants were still crawling around on the plate, I think she realised that we were not going to be her most food adventurous of pupils but still it was quite an experience and we now class ourselves as Michelin starred chefs.

So after Chiang Rai came Chiang Mai, Thailand's 2nd biggest city. A number of years ago we had visited here to go to an elephant farm which was 1 of our greatest memories to date. With the city being steeped in history and Buddhism, our to do list this time around included some of the most beautiful temples in the world...........then we heard that the lads were also in Chiang Mai & well, put it this way, we didn't see many monks in the 'Temple Bar'. We also simply couldn't resist our 2nd 'once in a lifetime' experience of doing an elephant trek. Here you become an elephant mahout (trainer) for the day giving the elephant instructions, feeding them and riding on the elephant how they are meant to be sat on (bareback not seats, although by the end your arse does kill) and the best part, taking it to the lake to bathe it and clean it. We were also given the king and leader of the group called Tong In and believe me he was a bloody big b*****!

We will also never forget this trip to Chiang Mai due to 1 of those ridiculously hilarious moments in life that you bring up again and again in the future. Upon trying to mount a tuk tuk, Stace had forgotten that her rucksack would make her back bigger and as her bag caught the top of the tuk tuk roof, she slowly fell backwards in a seriously slow motion sort of way. She had managed to grab a hold of one side of the hand rail and therefore spun around in a hard to explain sort of way and somehow sat of the floor of the road with her legs spread everywhere in the air with an utter 'what the hell just happened' embarrassed look on her face. I was just too far away to catch her but luckily 2 guys who had just caught a real eyeful were gentleman like enough to help her up. Obviously......I......then.....wet myself!!!!

So onwards and upwards in the air we would be once again, this time en route to China's Vegas called Macau. Being the only place in China that is legally allowed to house gambling (other than horse racing) it consists of huge mega resort type casinos. It's also known for its architecture and places of interest such as the ruins of St Paul's Cathedral. Naturally we spent the 2 days we had traipsing around the churches and ruins.....yeah reet, I think 6 casinos was our final total but with minimum bets of £30 needed per blackjack hand, we did at least stick to the penny machines and to be fair some of the casino architecture themselves are something of a marvel to be gawped at. We also thought that Singapore had serious money in it but with the opulence and flash cars on show here, it takes it to another level.

It's also worth mentioning how over ecstatic Stacey was on our first night in Macau. You see, with me having spent an hour getting ready to go out it coincided with Brazil World Cup tickets going on a 1st come 1st serve basis at precisely 7pm. Stace had by now set her own account up on fifa meaning she would have 2 computers ready and raring to try to bag some tickets. After 1 hour and 45 minutes of waiting and me badgering her to go out as I'd washed and dried my hair all nice, she was over the moon to get at least 1 game of tickets for England v Costa Rica. Sometimes I just have to make these sacrifices in life!!!

So big city livin was up next, the big bright lights of Hong Kong produces possibly the most spectacular skyline in the world, houses 1 of the most densely populated areas on the planet, has the longest outdoor escalator ever up a steep area called soho and contains a vast amount of very expensive shops everywhere (there was a Rolex shop and Gucci store on nearly every corner) but we still managed to hunt out the Asian markets and even an odd warehouse store where Stace found a £3 swimsuit. We also took the highly publicised 'Peak Tram' to the top of the island to give a wonderful view of the city but unfortunately the days were quite foggy, suppose you can't have it all. We then met 1 of the lads from the valley called JD who took us to a proper dim sum Chinese restaurant to which we were very grateful as we probably wouldn't have tasted it otherwise - once again, over here they eat everything so beware! We also trekked around Lamma island which is a completely different face of Hong Kong with small fishing villages and lastly took great pleasure in watching Liverpool batter United.

So now it's once again back to Bangkok before Pattaya and maybe Koh Samet. There's only 11 days to go until the family and friend reunions begin, woohoo!