We arrived in chiang Mai northern Thailand by overnight train which was an experience in itself! Chiang Mai is the second largest city in Thailand.Its main attractions are wats (Temples), trekking,and to visit the famous hilltribe villages in the surrounding highlands. On arriving here we just missed a big earthquake that happened the week before it measured 6.1 on the ritcher scale.The biggest thailand has ever seen.it even left very large cracks on the marble floor in our hostel.The after shock had even reached Bangkok and shook some buildings.Luckily we hadnt arrived yet!

Today (saturday) we signed up to do a thai cookery class for the day.it was really great.We firstly went to the local market with our chef Meow and other english girls to be intorduced to our ingredients.We then went to our kitchen where we all created masterpieces!!Was very enjoyable.

Today we went on the hill tribe tour. Our first stop was at an orchid farm,which was nice to see so many blooming flowers! ;-) we went to the elephant dung centre where it shows the process of making paper from elephant dung (thats were we bought all your presents).To my surprise it was interesting as i thought it was goin to be s*** (ya get it!?)sorry had to put that in.

From here we travelled out to the countryside to see the Long neck tribal women.The hilltribe population numbers about 800,000. Each hilltribe has a different language, dress,religion,artistic heritage and culture.They live in the mountains in wooden shacks,its a tradition for them to wear brass coils around their necks from the age of five,and every four to five years they get more coils added on. so basically their shoulders are pushed down from the weight and their necks lengthen.They wear these until they die.It was quite sad to see,as they reckon the tradition is only now continuing on for the tourists. There were some big ear women aswell which had huge coils in their ears (another tradition).

After here we went to see five more villages.The people that lived there were burma origin but are now freely able to live in thailand. Again these villages were wooden shacks along the roadside.Each shack had one room where a family would eat drink sleep etc..The men were farmers where they spent every day in the rice fields and the women worked around the home and looked after the children.The smell was quite unbearable as they have no toilet facilities.There were little kids running around naked covered in dirt.it was quite sureal. Then from nowhere these village women came all traditionally dressed selling their handmade crafts...not one would surround you but six or seven!!it ws very funny.

After the villages we went to Chiang Dao caves,they were absolutely huge inside. They penetrate deep into the limestone hills. they are a popular pilgrimage spot for monks ans ordinary Thais. The caverans contain an assortment of Buddha and hermit images as well as some impressive natural rock formations. Of course when were had walked about 30mins into the cave our guide told us its home to many insects and reptiles such as scorpions, snakes,lizards...but dont worry they are sleeping now!!

On our way back we stopped off at a snake show..which was very scary as i absolutely hate snakes (lisa) so we sat up on the top row of seats!! but of course they knew we were petrified then.So the guys pulled out cobras,phythons, rattle snakes, had them all running loose below our feet trying to avoid been bitten by them.Finally at the end they said "the last show with the jumping snakes is very dangerous..so lift your feet up as they jump over 10feet"..at this satge i was nearly stuck to the ceiling!! the guys picked out a snake from the box and threw it across the room and it wrapped itself around Heidis waist!!! i was screaming and shouting and trying to jump off the arena until we realised it was a black and green piece of rope!!! very funny ;-(