Hello everyone,

So on Sunday we boarded the train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. It was a sleeper train similar to the one we went on on the way to Phuket. Luckily it turned out the pervert from the train station wasn't in the bunk next to us much to our relief! The journey took around 15 hours and was a slow and rickety ride. We slept quite well though and I was nice and cozy in my bed. Every now and then I'd look outside to see mountains, rice paddies and pretty teak houses. When we arrived a lot of other backpackers got off at the same time. We got a tuk tuk to our hotel which is nice and very cheap but a little further away from the action than I'd hoped. We badly needed a good feeding so headed down the road. Though because were not in a touristy part of town we ended up in a little local restaurant that seemed to only serve beef noodle soup. It turned out to be delicious! After relaxing in the hotel and doing laundry we went into the old town which is surrounded by a wall in an attempt to find more going on. Though again we ended up on the non-touristy side of town, not necessarily a bad thing of course though. Desperate for food we ended up in another local restaurant. There were various big pots with different stew-like dishes which you could have with rice or noodles. We both picked what the man told us was the 'non-spicy' chicken dish. So for the next hour we ate our food pink-cheeked, watery-eyed and runny-nosed. We were trying to play it cool since there were school girls sitting near us munching away on there's. It was so hot! Even Ryan could hardly bear it. I ate as much as I could and told the man it was nice but a bit too spicy. He looked at me in shock and said that it wasn't at all. It was definitely an experience anyway!

On Tuesday we hired a scooter and went into the old town. We went into a temple called Wat Chedi Luang which is beautiful. Inside there was some sort of service going on with people giving baskets of food to the monks. We spoke to one of them after who was really nice. He even did quite a good Scouse accent impression. Apparently there are over 300 temples in Chiang Mai which is pretty crazy, there seems to be one around every corner. In the evening we attempted to find the night bazaar but ended up in a different market full of local people. While we were looking around it started to rain so we got on the bike and went to find somewhere to eat. Before we could find anywhere we ended up in a massive rain storm and got absolutely soaked! The rain was so hard it actually hurt our faces. Although we were really hungry we had to go back to the hotel and get changed. We managed to get somewhere to eat then later in a taxi then went to a bar with a pretty good band playing. A cute little boy selling roses convinced Ryan to buy me one. He also had an arm wrestle with him...the kid won obviously.

Yesterday morning Ryan was suffering the consequences of the beer drank the night before, though he blames it on the ice shake from the market, whatever! We wandered back into the town, got some food and had a look around the shops. We also went into a temple called Wat Phan Tao which was nice. In the evening we managed to find the night bazaar so had a look around there. We went into a fish spa internet cafe where you could browse the net while dangling your feet in a tank of fish which nibble off your bits of dead skin. I couldn't bear it at first because it tickled so bad! We got used to it after a while though. Later I persuaded Ryan to go to watch some Muay Thai. We weren't sure if it was going to be any good but decided to go for it in the end. It turned out to be really good actually! It was quite brutal with lots of people getting knocked out. There was also a fight between two girls, one between two little boys and another between about 6 blindfolded guys which was pretty hilarious!

Today we did a half day cooking course at a place called Siam Rice cooking school. It's not something i'd usually think of doing, especially as I rarely cook but I thought it would be a bit of fun after reading the reviews. We had a great time! We were in a group with two girls who are living in the states but are actually English and French and an Australian family with two young daughters. We got picked up by a man called Pot who gave us a little tour of a market where he buys all of his ingredients. Then we went to the house where we met Nancy who is lovely. We got to pick a soup, a curry and another main course from a list. Ryan was a bit of a teachers pet as he made a really good curry paste and Nancy kept complimenting him, what a loser! We were all pretty stuffed after eating all of our creations, they were really yummy though. At the end we were given a certificate and a recipe book so I guess I have no excuses not to cook when I get back now do I mum!

Lots of love,

Jo and Ryan