Had a very busy week or so after the trekking. The next day we went on a Thai cookery course in Chiang Mai, where we learnt how to make curries, cakes, soups, noodles etc. Was great fun and very filling! So hopefully we might be able to cook something interesting now!

We then took our first bus with the locals to Chiang Rai, which is a quiet city. Had a night market with some very cheap stools selling hill tribe crafts and watches. The best thing we found was a cafe called "cabbages and condoms" which is trying to make condoms as cheap as cabbages (funnily enough). Food was ok but the gift shop was brilliant, so many funny posters and tshirts. We also got free tickets to the hilltribe museum, which was interesting but very small, showing tools, costumes, hunting gear and houes of the 9 tribes in THailand.

Now we are in Luang Prabang in Laos, after a very dodgy border entry over a very small river and then a 15 hour night bus to Luang Prabang.

Slightly cooler here, though its going to get up to 40 degrees later in the week. Lots of temples, markets andplaces where we can go white water rafting, and get boats around the city as we are surrounded by a large river.