Hey all!

Well we can not believe that it is December all ready and Christmas is literally around the corner! We have not blogged in a while as the internet was quite expensive where we were.

Well the last time we wrote to you we were in Chang Mai doing our seperate activities! Heres how it went....

Kimberly: I went to a Thai cooking class for the day it was really good and I learnt loads of new dishes! The whole day was spent cooking and then just eating everything we cooked it was amazing! On the last dish we cooked, the chef showed us how to put fire into our woks and cook like that!! It was really good although I got scared and threw my wok back onto the stove the chef had to come and put my ingrediants back into the wok! It was a really great day and was topped off by a free recipe book and a certificate!! Something to add to the CV!

Stephanie: (the tribe is near Pai, where we trekked, so i made double sure, that no trekking was involved!)
I went to see the the Long neck and big ear tribe. It was a fairly long journey to their village, but I met some lovely Auzzie ladies which gave me loads of information on Australia. One of the ladies said.... 'and i like my tucker!' Very amusing!
Once arrived at the tribe it was amazing to actually see these women in real life and not on the internet. I held the the metal coil that goes around their neck, it was so heavy. Im not sure how they manage. The village was very similar to the villages in the trek. In the village a wedding was taking place, a 27 year old man and a 14 year old girl, she looked so young and scared.
It was a really good day, but i missed Kimberly!

After we did our seperate activities we realised we missed each other too much and would have to carry on the rest of the journey together - it was touch and go for a while though!!

The next day which was our last in Chang Mai and after the trekk which had been my idea, Stephanie wanted to check out two museums, the first being textiles and fashion and the second a tribe museum. They were both in different directions, so we decided to walk to one, come back and have lunch then walk to the other. Needless to say thats not how the day paned out!

The journey to the textiles and fashion museum was meant to take 30 mintues! An hour and 3 converstations with some local people later we still had not found the place! Finally after some more walking we found it! It didnt look very busy but we thought that would be a good thing! It turns out the reason that no one was around is that it closed down a year ago! Great! Well after that we were annoyed, Stephanie especially as she was looking forward to it!

There was no time to dwell, at least we got some exercise! So it was onwards and upwards to the next museum! We decided to get a tuk tuk as it was a long walk and less chance of us getting lost! That would have been a sensible idea if the driver knew where he was going! The tuk tuks in Chang Mai are a little bit different to others in Thailand, they have a cabin for the driver and a seat next to him and then an open air truck for the passengers. We were sitting in the open air bit, getting worried as the driver was driving in completley the opposite direction we thought he must know a short cut. After a little while longer and no shortcut we knocked on his window and showed him the map - while he was still driving! He then pulled over and got Stephanie to sit upfront with him to show him the way! Well it was like the blind leading the blind we only just manage to get somewhere near the museum and he kept saying it was round the corner, so we paid him the money and once agian started walking to find the place, at this point we were really annoyed as it was no where in sight. I did tell Stephanie I think it is the gods way of telling us we shouldn't be going to a museum today - she did not like this comment!

So another hour of walking later and in silence - we decide silence was the best way and another 2 conversations with the local people pointing us in different directions we had still not found the museum!

After 3 hours of walking, an hour in a tuk tuk, 5 conversations with local people and precisely no museums entred it was time to call it a day. We flagged down another tuk tuk praying he knew his way around and went back to get some food!
We knew we would laugh about this day in weeks to come but at that point we were to hot, to annoyed and far to tired to even talk about it!! That evening we treated ourselves with a dvd player and dvds you could rent for the night at our guesshouse!

After Chang Mai we came back to Bangkok and stayed for a couple of days until we went down to Ko Samed, where we lived on white sandy beaches for just over a week. Christmas is not celebrated here, but there was a couple of christmas trees decorated on the beach! Koh Samed was a lovely national park, very quite during the weekdays and then at the weekend it is a whole different story! Lots of the young Thais have weekend break on the island, especially gay guys!

Of course we could not have visited a new place without dancing and tasting the local beverages, alcoholic of course! We walked to another beach and shared a bucket (for those who dont know when we refer to a bucket we mean a bucket full of cocktail as a glass would just not be good enough!!). It was still fairly early, but we were told that it would get busier! We moved on to the traditional jaggerbombs, two gay guys asked what we were drinking, then we all had one including the bar tender! It was getting busier, but we were the 1st on the dance floor with our two new friends. We were dancing the night away with our two new friends we thought we had some great routines but these guys knew how to move they were nice enough to give us some of their moves in turn we did the same!! The later it got the more tops that came off i think its a rule there either your top had to be off or at least unbuttoned! Dont worry we kept ours on we know the saying "know your crowd"!! After saying goodnight to our friends we left for the next club! We tried out our new moves we had just learnt and they went down a treat! We then left for bed ready for the next day of you guessed it more sunbathing!!!

It was actually quite a weird island, not many backpackers and alot of western guys with Thai brides, and a couple of families, but we used our time wisely sunning ourselves and enjoying cocktails! lol. Each day we also took time to note what colour thong a western man down the other side of the beach was wearing he started off with a stunning red one and then by the end of the week was a little bit more daring with a white one!! - no joke!!

We had a lovely week, as it was the first beach we had been to since we started travelling. While we were there I (kimberly) did my PADI open water scuba diving course it took three days and I passed so I am now qualified to go scuba diving of up to 18 meters deep! (something else to put on my CV) The three days was really good and my instructor a Thai man called Woody was really nice and a little bit crazy he has been diving for 30 years! The first day was spent watching a video and then reading a manual and taking tests - it was like I was back at school and I was a bit nervous!!! I passed the tests and the next day was the shallow dives I met Woody at his office where he had a wet suit waiting for me... great!! After I tried on 10 diffrent wetsuites some too big and some too small. Every time I took one off a little piece of my dignity went with it after finding one that in the words of Woody "will have to do" we were off. During the shallow dives I had to do certain things such as 'what to do in an emergency' ect. The third day I had my final theory exam and then my deep dives I passed the exam and we went on a day trip on a boat to do 2 open water dives. The first dive went well I didn't see many big fish but there were plently of little ones to look at, all diffrent colours! After that we stoped had some food and then did a spot of fishing I caught nothing and gave up! We then went further around the island and stopped again for the second dive that was really great! After we had finished Woody made me swim (to see if i could) for 200 meters and then made me float on the water for 5 minutes! Back on the boat Woody told me I passed and we celebrated with a hug! We went to an open air aquarium which had sharks and huge turtles and other fish. We stepped off the boat onto planks of wood held up by floating tanks. To move around you had to just walk on the planks of wood, they were not very stable and there was nothing to stop you from falling in. As we found out a while ago saftey is not that big of a deal in Thialand! I went back to Woody's office where he gave me all the paper work I was lucky in that I was the only student he had at that time it was a quite island and not the best known for diving but it was good to have 1 to 1 with the instructor.

Well we have now left Ko Samed and are now in Bangkok! Well Mummy and Danielle think that we are heading to the South Island and meeting them down there in a couple of days, but we are actually in Bangkok! Ready to surprise them at their hotel! We are very excited, but it is a secret!Shhhh!! They should be on the plane as we send this!!

We know we are leaving this blog with a cliff hanger so tune in next time to get the answers...
- Will they be suprised?
- Where did the reunion take place?
and What adventures will unfold when the gang is back together again??!!

Hope you are all well, let us know all your news, keep us updated!

Sorry it is a bit of an essay!

Loads of love S and K xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx