Hi guys,

Well here we are in Chiang Mai and have been up to all sorts of activities over the last 3 days. We travelled up from Bangkok on the overnight bus which was pretty painless as it picked us up from the hotel and took us direct to the bus station in Chiang Mai. Travelling in Thailand is much easier than most of the countries we have visited because it is geared to tourists so as long as you look after your bags its quite safe.

We arrived very early in the morning and got ourselves a taxi form the bus station to our hotel. Neither of us had managed to get the best sleep on the bus on the way up so took full advantage of a comfy bed for a few hours in the morning before heading out to explore Chiang Mai. It is supposedly a city of 1.6 million people but the centre really has a feel of a small town and was a welcome relief from the hassle of Bangkok. We wandered around a few of the temples (apparently there are over 150 here) and then one of the markets by the river. Chiang Mai is known for its crafts and food which the market was full of. However the famed night market was due to be held that evening so the day market was quite subdued when we visited. The rest of the afternoon was spent checking out the shops then spending an hour cooling off in the air con before we ventured out again to visit the night market for ourselves.

The Chiang Mai night market is huge and spans several miles across the centre of the city every Sunday. We started off by getting some curry and then spent a good few hours walking up and down the market. It surprised both of us that almost every stall sold high quality foods or crafts and we would have bought most of it. We had thought that because of the sheer size most of the market would be full of the usually nock offs and junk you find at Asian markets so it was a pleasant surprise.

The next day was a day I had been looking forward to for quite some time as we were set to ride elephants. The way it works here is rather than booking to just go see the elephants you have to book on a day of activities so that's what we did. So we got picked up at our hotel first thing in a mini bus and got taken to our first activity outside the city which was rafting. On the way we had a brief stop at a butterfly farm which was nothing more than a greenhouse with butterflys, but we got some good photos. The rafting was quite good fun and had a few small rapids on the way down and we got quite wet. After the rafting we got taken in the mini bus to the elephant sanctuary where we had bit of lunch whilst looking at the elephants across the river.

After lunch was elephant riding time! We climbed up a ladder on to a raised platform that helps you to climb onto the elephant's saddle and then we were off. I was surprised to find that riding and elephant isn't really that comfy at all. They are very clumsy in their movement which results in you being thrown all over the place on top. They are so huge and their big ears kept flapping as they walked along. After the ride we bought some bananas and gave the elephant a big snack to say thanks. The whole thing was really rewarding and having the elephant use her trunk to take the bananas out of my hand was really cool.

The rest of the afternoon was spent doing the other activities as part of the package which was a ride down the river on a bamboo raft and a short jungle trek. Both of these were a little disappointing but we had only booked on the trip to see and ride the elephants so we were still very happy and satisfied with the day's events.

The following day we had signed up for a cooking course. We have already done a course in Vietnam but the food in Thailand is so much better (hence excessive photos of food) so we were both quite excited for the course. The day started with a trip around a small food market in the city centre, with the chefs, where they showed and bought all the ingredients for the days cooking and explained what other dishes the ingredients could be used for. Throughout the day we cooked and eat 7 courses each and were absolutely stuffed by the end of it. I cooked; noodles and chicken; green curry paste; chicken green curry; sweet and sour veg; spring rolls; hot and sour prawn soup; and fried bananas with ice cream and was quite impressed with my efforts. Thai cooking is so fast most of the dishes could be cooked in 20min or less and they all included completely fresh ingredients. We got given a cook book at the end of the course so supposedly I should be able to re-make the dishes though I'm a little unsure they would be anywhere near as good.

After the cooking school we both just chilled out for a few hours doing nothing to let our ridicules amount of food settle. Then the evening was spent at one of the local bars were we treated ourselves to a novelty tower of beer where you could pour your own draft beer at the table, while watching Wimbledon on the bars sky TV.

We are flying to Phuket today so spending most of the day travelling and then will hopefully be in Koh Phi Phi tomorrow sunning ourselves so will update you all on our tans/burns in a few days.

Lots of love

Martin and Katie