Elephant Nature Park The reason we flew to Chiang Mai on our way to New Zealand was to visit the Elephant Nature Park. It's a sanctuary for elephants rescued from across Thailand and neighbouring Burma. Many of the elephants are injured or partially sighted and at the park they can get all the medical treatment they need plus regular feeds as most of them are unfit to forage for food as they would in the wild. Logging was made illegal in Thailand in recent year...

Deep Fried Banana Visiting the sunday market in Chiang Mai gave us several insights into Thai life. Thai stall holders find tourists who try to barter really funny. They seem genuinely tickled as they chuckle conspiratorially with their neighbour, as if to say, 'they think it's a bargain because they've knocked off 20 baht...don't they know that's only 50p!' The thai snack of deep fried battered banana slices is really tasty, so good that even the imploring ey...

Scorchio! The wall of heat hit us as we stepped on the plane. Yes, as we stepped ON the plane. The air conditioning unit on our 11 hour flight to Bangkok had failed. The pilot made a special appearance in the lounge before we boarded to announce that there would be a delay; they would load all the bags and refreshments he said, before asking passengers to take their seats at the last possible moment, making us endure the heat for as little time as possible. The ...