Sawadee everybody and hello from Chiang Maii here in Northern Thailand.

I know you must have all missed our blog yesterday so I will bring you up to speed with what has been going on.

Our train journey from Bangkok was an experience shall we say the 1st class compartment was excellent and we got a meal in our room (at extra cost,there was no dining car) the whole trip was going well and nice and relaxed. We turned in early and neither of us could get to sleep. Mel was on the bottom bunk and me on the top but the train was so noisy and rickety you could feel every bump and we eventally got to sleep at 3am due to exhaustion I think!!!!

We rolled into Chiang Mai at 8am and jumped onto a Sawngthaew (flat back truck with 2 benches in the back!!!) to take us the 1 mile into town. After negotiating a price our driver seemed not to know where we needed to be and we went down a lot of street and soi (little streets off the main streets) for 45 minutes till we found our guest house.

The place is fantastic and really friendly although you have to cross a building site to get to the entrance as they are having an outdoor swimming pool installed. Once we got sorted we headed into town to have a quick look around and visited Wat Chiang Man, this was built in 1296 AD and was really amazing to look around if you avoided the Tuk Tuk drivers and the ladies selling birds in bamboo cages that you pay to release then they catch them again and charge someone else!!!!

Both of us had an afternoon nap to make up for lost sleep then booked ourselves onto a Thai cookery course for tomorrow, I have finally managed to persuade Mel that she needs cooking lessons!!!!

Tonight was real good fun as we visited the Chiang Mai night bazaar although the heavens opened we had a great time looking around all the stalls and dodging the pouring rain that comes down like Niagara Falls from the rooftops. We got out our ponchos that we got for free in Vancouver and they kept us really dry and warm.

We even bought a bit more tat so another parcel home will be due soon (sorry Haze)

Decided to have an extra night here and have also booked to go to visit the Long Neck and Big ear hill tribes as well as bamboo rafting and elephant trekking in the jungle so stay tuned for more exciting adventures!!!

Lots of Love

M & M