Our bus to Chiang Mai was just as horrible as to be expected. Our VIP bus turned out to be a public bus which we spent our first 16 hours on. They like to get there monies worth with these buses, so once we had all boarded they lined the aisle with plastic chairs to fit an extra row in. It was certainly an interesting night, especially as Tom had a man throwing up into a sick bag over his shoulder for 7 hours. So we made it to the border crossing a little late (its takes a while to get a motorbike on and off the roof of a bus), but the border itself was a breeze. Two little huts and no queues. Makes a big differences from our previous two crossings. Once on the other side it was another 6 hours and we had finally made it to Chiang Mai around 5pm.

That night was obviously spent fairly quiet. All of us felt pretty exhausted from an eventful journey. However after a good nights sleep we woke up ready to explore our latest city. We headed up to Doi Suthep Temple (yes another temple!), which you had to climb about 300 steps to get up to. Once up there, there is a fantastic view over Chiang Mai. The temple itself is also very beautiful, they like their gold here so with the sunshine the temples always look pretty amazing.

We then spent the afternoon doing lots of planning for the second half of our trip. Laura booked her flight home so will be sadly be abandoning us on January the 15th. We are nearing the end of our over land adventure, so now all of a sudden we need to start worrying about booking flights, something we have not yet had to worry about.

Once we had felt fully planned out we headed off to the night market. Here the final preparations were made for secret Santa. We decided this would be the best way to deal with present giving, so the 5 of us have spent the last month trying to put off sorting anything out. After that we headed out for a few drinks to celebrate Christmas Eve. The Christmas vibe is definitely alive over here so its great fun.

Christmas Day we woke up very early and got ready for our day with the elephants. We had decided to do something really different to make up for the fact we weren't with all our families. It was so amazing to see the elephants and we got a chance to feed them and they even picked us up. However you couldn't help feeling sorry for them. Especially when riding one, the keeper hit mine and Tom's elephant so hard on its skull with a metal stick. While there we went bamboo rafting and got a ride in an ox cart. Although a strange day it great to finally see some elephants.

That night we had booked ourselves into the local Irish pub for Christmas dinner. We weren't expecting much but it turned out to be a really great night. We were all given Santa's hats to wear and the food was excellent. Considering how far away we are from our families, the day was a great success. We are all planning next Christmas now and looking forward to being at home in the cold!

For Boxing Day we decided to give ourselves the day off and some time to relax. In the evening we headed to the cinema to watch Tron. We even got the experience of having to stand up to sing the National Anthem before the film started!

Day five was spent at a Thai Cookery School. It was so much fun. We had the chance to cook 6 different Thai dishes in small classes. We each get a cookery book so I'm sure everyone back home will get a chance to sample our newly found cookery skills! After a day of solid eating we spent the evening feeling pretty full.

The next day we decided to spilt into two groups. Laura and Simon headed off to take part in The Gibbon Experience. It is lots of zip wires all over the canopy of a rainforest. They were even lucky enough to see a gibbon with its baby swinging through the trees. While these two were having an adventurous day the rest of us decided to chill out at the local park with a picnic. It was lovely to just read and laze in the sunshine. After our picnic we headed off to try our hand at yoga. The class was run by a 50 year old American woman who now lives in Thailand. So basically a hippy. For those people who love watching Tom get wound up, it was a perfect end to a a great week. In the end I couldn't look at him while she told us all about the negativity in the world. After an hour and a half of solid yoga we were exhausted, so headed off to eat some pizza while remembering our bodies are our temples.

Our final day in Chiang Mai was spent doing yet more planning before heading off to the train station to board our train to Bangkok. Its strange to be on the go again, it was a lovely break, but we are rested and ready for New Year in Bangkok.