Hi all, Shanita here trying to catch up on our blog while its raining outside. Still having the best time. Currently being beach bums in the awesome islands. We have actually timed this part of the trip perfectly as its supposed to be monsoon season and therefore is considered low season until high season begins on 1st November. But we've actually had amazing weather (the odd short shower) and because its low season we've benefitted from accomodation at half the price it normally is- also, the islands are fairly quiet at the moment so we're avoiding the madness of the crowds next month- all good!

Anyway backtracking a bit now to get you up to spped...

Chiang Mai, in Northern Thailand, is an amazing place- very laid back after the madness of Bangkok! It has a charming walled old town surrounded by a moat. The nightlife is brilliant with lots of cool bars. One night while relaxing with a drink we turned to see an elephant in the pub!
We are so in love with thai food- especially their red and green curries- super spicy and soooo tasty! Stevie set himself a wee challenge one day- we all need challenges in life- to eat a thai curry for breakfast, lunch and dinner in the same day- and he succeeded! So anyway due to our growing love of the food we did an amazing full day cooking course. It started with a trip to the local market to collect some ingredients and then we spent the day cooking 5 dishes of our choice- Steve chose a different 5 from me so we learnt a total of 10! And after each course was cooked we got to eat all our delicious food- amazing but we were so stuffed by the end of the day!

My 2nd love in Thailand is the super cheap, amazing (and rather painful) thai body and foot massages for 1-3quid! Though you do have to be careful you go to reputable places or else you could end up with more than you asked for! 'Happy Ending' is the term used!

The only thing i hate here is seeing all the old western men with very young thai girls- its horrible!

Love Shanita and Steven xxx