We got on the sleeper train to Chiang Mai in Bangkok and found our seats, in a pleasantly clean carriage with lots of space for us to sit opposite each other at the window. We were soon on our way, passing through the outskirts of Bangkok for quite some time, with lots of run down shacks right up against the tracks, people's houses and shops between the railway line and the buildings behind.

We selected some food for dinner from the 'Bogie Gourmet' menu presented to us, then sat back to enjoy the journey. We soon started speaking to a couple across the carriage from us, Simone and Kai, who were from Germany, and we ended up spending most of the evening with them as we rattled our way through the countryside. Eventually our food arrived and we moved back to our own seats to eat the really tasty meal, then relaxed and chatted for a bit before the carriage attendant came and folded our beds out from our seating area.

We were really tired so we went off to bed shortly after they were made up, though we both ended up reading for a while before getting off to sleep. I had a wider lower bunk whilst Lucy had the smaller upper bunk which I don't think I would have fit very comfortably in. The bed was really comfortable and we both had a good sleep, only waking up now and then as the train slowed down or stopped at stations.

In the morning we woke up and had a quick breakfast on the train before it arrived in Chiang Mai. We had already booked a guesthouse online and Simone and Kai had booked a trek in Bangkok which included 2 nights in a guesthouse which was near ours. We decided to share a sawngthaew (pickup with 2 rows of benches in the back) from the station, and hopped out at our guest house, arranging to meet up in a bit once we had all had showers.

We got checked in to our guest house which seemed really nice and clean, with friendly staff. We were shown to our fan room upstairs, across a wide hallway of polished wooden floorboards. The room was spacious, and spotlessly clean. We dumped our stuff and had a shower in the shared bathrooms which were also immaculate, though in the heat we were sweating again soon after our showers. It was good to get a wash after the sleeper train though.

We met Simone and Kai downstairs in the cafe part of our guesthouse, where they told us how horrible the guesthouse they'd been taken to was. We felt a bit sorry for them having paid quite a lot of money in Bangkok for their trek and to get such a poor guesthouse. They hadn't even been able to check in and get a shower.

Putting their woes aside, we wandered around the old town of Chiang Mai which forms a square of low buildings surrounded by a square moat. The smaller buildings, less busy streets and generally laid back attitude was a nice contrast to the crazy bustle of traffic, touts and people in Bangkok and Pattaya. We immediately liked the town as we walked around, checking out a few gaudily decorated temples encrusted with gold paint, with ornately carved roofs and naga or serpents adorning the buildings everywhere we looked. The heat was intense but it was enjoyable to see the town after our disappointing day in Bangkok the day before.

We eventually decided to stop for a lunch at a small cafe where I tried the local specialty, kaow soi or Chiang Mai noodles which consisted of noodles with chicken in a curry broth and crispy fried noodles on top. Lucy had a noodle stir fry, and we all really enjoyed our food.

After lunch, Simone and Kai were keen to get checked into their guesthouse so we walked back to our place and arranged to meet there in a while to go for a massage at one of the many massage parlours in town. We relaxed at the guesthouse for a while before meeting the guys later, finding out they had changed guesthouses after being shown to their room in the original place, which was filthy with an old mattress propped against the wall. The new one didn't sound that much better, so we were once again happy to be staying somewhere as nice as Green Tulip!

We walked through the streets and soon found a massage place that we'd passed earlier in the day which looked nice, with a little pond and stepping stones in front of the entrance and a good price for Thai massage. We were soon sat down with a cup of sweet tea and our feet in bowls of warm water, although I had a bit of trouble fitting my feet in my bowl... After the masseurs cleaned our feet, we were shown upstairs where we changed into light baggy fisherman trousers and a loose top, then lay down on a mattress on the floor for our massage. The room was clean and cool with the air con going, a nice change to the sticky heat outside. Our masseurs soon started their work, first working on our legs before moving on to our arms, feet, back, shoulders and neck. After a full hour of quite intense massage we felt great, and returned downstairs very relaxed.

Simone and Kai had to go to a meeting at their guest house about their trek the next day so we once again arranged to meet back at our place in a bit, and went back to relax and check the internet in our room. Whilst at the guesthouse we booked onto a cooking course for the next day, having heard good things about the classes in town and keen to learn how to make some of the Thai food we both loved.

In a little while we all met downstairs and had a beer at our guesthouse before taking a walk to the edge of the old town and along one section of the moat, surrounding the crumbling walls of the old town. Near the south-east corner of the moat we reached our destination, a night food market. There were lots of stalls lining the street selling all sorts of food, and we browsed the various carts before settling on one which had tables and an english menu.

We enjoyed a tasty and quick meal here for a few quid, accompanied by a bottle of Chang, before walking back along the moat towards our guest houses. We arranged to try and meet Simone and Kai the evening they got back from their trek, as we didn't know what our plans would be over the next few days then headed back to our guesthouse and to bed.

The next morning we were up early to go to our cooking class. We were picked up downstairs in a sawngthaew and driven to the Baan Thai cookery school, down a narrow alleyway which seemed to be filled with cookery schools. We had read in the brochure that there would only be 9 people maximum in the class but when we arrived there were already nearly 20 people milling about. We were a bit disappointed until we were all split up and shown to various rooms around the 3 houses which made up the school, where we were sat in groups of 8 or 9.

Our table was a real international mix with Scottish, English, Italian and French people and everyone seemed really nice. After a talk about rice, and selecting the dishes we would cook that day, we all set off down the narrow alleyways of the town to a market, where one of our instructors took us around the various stalls, showing us and explaining the typical Thai ingredients. We were then free to roam around the market for a few minutes before heading back to the school with baskets with some of our ingredients in them. We had time to grab a delicious banana shake from one of the stalls at the market before we made our way back.

Once back at the school, we were given a plate of nibbles including some fresh fruit, rice crackers and nuts to eat until we were split into groups depending on our first dish and sent to a table to watch how to prepare the dish. Lucy and I had both picked pad thai and we were shown how to prepare the ingredients, then how to cook the dish, before getting to try it ourselves. Both our dishes turned out pretty well, and we were soon back at our table tucking into the tasty stir-fried noodles.

The rest of the day followed in a similar fashion, with us splitting up to make our various dishes then returning to the table to eat together. After the pad thai I made papaya salad while Lucy made spring rolls, then I made tom ka soup while Lucy made tom yum. We teamed up to make fried bananas before making a red curry paste in a group then using it to cook some Chiang Mai noodles.

By the end of the day we were totally stuffed and we could only manage a few mouthfuls of our Chiang Mai noodles which were really tasty. We did find room for the banana fritters though... The class had been really fun, we'd learnt to make some of our favourite dishes and had eaten so much! After all our cooking and eating, we bid the rest of our group farewell and got a lift back to the guesthouse, where we booked a one day trek for the next day after giving it some thought during the day.

After a shower and a relax at Green Tulip, we left the guesthouse and caught our first tuk tuk, through the old town and across the moat to the night bazaar, quite famous in Chiang Mai. The night bazaar, an evolution of the market where traders from China and other countries would have sold their wares in years gone by, was now pretty touristy with hundreds of stalls selling identical t-shirts, jewellery and other bits and bobs. There was also a food court where we picked up some fruit shakes to sip on as we wandered the markets. We picked up some of the comfy baggy fisherman pants for Lucy and I got some t-shirts, before we haggled with the taxi drivers to get a cheap taxi back to the guethouse and called it a night, in preparation for our trek the next day.