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26 May

We had breakfast after waking up just after 10h00, and headed off to walk through the old city district of Chiang Mai and find new accommodation as well as a massage school where we could do a week class of deep Thai massage in the Northern style. After wandering around while comparing places and still deciding whether to go to Laos or not, we found a place. The woman taught at the Thai massage school and we were guaranteed that the classes are very small. We paid the deposit and wandered onwards having been told that there were many cheap guest houses along the way.

After the third one we visited we decided to make a reservation for when we return from the trek, it was half the price of our current accommodation and had been newly renovated with even a nice balcony! Now there was only a cooking school we wanted to find where we could do a 1 day cooking course. We had heard from our American friends that they had done one for 900 Baht each. A little way on we found a traditional Thai house build from Teak wood, where they taught. We haggled about the price and in the end decided to go for it, having to pay 800 Baht each but this included a trip to the organic farm, choosing our own ingredients with the teacher and making our own food that we had selected from a menu, we of course had to eat what we made, this is either a good or bad thing. We decided to book a night in the Teak house just to get a feeling for sleeping in a traditional Thai house.

We headed home stopping at a restaurant for lunch before taking a afternoon nap. 18h00 we are called to the dinning room to meet with the guide who explains the trip and logistics around it. Two of the members are from the Netherlands and spent 6 months touring through Australia sleeping in a car and touring the whole east coast on less than R40 000 for the whole time. We chat to them for over an hour before heading out to find something to eat and buying supplies for the trek ahead. Back home we pack the final things before heading off to bed.