Today we decided we would go see number one attraction in Chiang Mai. This of course was, suprise suprise, a temple. The temple is waaaaay up on the hills so we got a taxi who told us he would wait for us while we went up the 300 steps to the temple and have a look around and then take us back to town again, sounded like a scam to me, especially since we didnt know how far up the hill the temple was. It turns out it was about 20km outside of town, and up the craz...

Another early start to the day, because today is Elephant day. I have been looking forward to doing this, silently I must admit, since we left. I had been told about it before we left and thought it sounded like great fun. Elephants are very intersting animals with there great memory and things, something very noble about them!!! So anyway, we got picked up from the hostel and off we drove out to the countryside. There were just a few hairy moments when the van ...

Another day another temple.... I see what people mean now by once you have seen one you have seen them all. Thats a bit harsh though, it is. These temples are really amazing in fairness to them. Today we decided to do a bit of a self guided walking tour of Chiang Mai. The main section of the town is built within a walled and moated square, a large square. There are four gates half way down each edge of the square, and needless to say there are four corners at eac...

So our first day in Chiang Mai and we have decided to do a cooking course, a Thai cooking course, they just call it a cooking course though. They collected us at half nine in what I have just learned is called a songthaews (taxi jeep thing) and went around the other hostels to collect the other six people doing the course. We went off to the market then to collect the ingredients and got to smell all the various herbs and spices and things we would be using. Lemo...

Its time to take the train..... I've always considered the train to be the classiest form of travel. To get to Chiang Mai we had probably three choices. Bus, plane and train. This was an easy choice for me. The plane is obviously the fastest and most expensive and I never really want to go on a bus again so down to the train station we went. Our tickets cost about 15 euro between us, the train left at half eight in the morning and was due in at half eight at nig...