Hello Everybody!

Sorry it's been a few days, we arrived in Chiang Mai in the early hours of Friday morning after an epic 10 hour overnight bus journey from Bangkok. Although advertised as 'Comfortable, Spacious and Air Conditioned' buses, we found quite the opposite when it was full of hippy Germans whose body odour wasn't the best and further Europeans who chose to smoke in the toilets - which also STANK of urine!!!! As you can imagine not the best of three scents for a 10 hour journey, although we couldn't complain at about £7 each!

Once we'd arrived, got our room in a mess and got showered and changed, we made our way into Chiang Mai city which in the past was surrounded by a wall and moat. The wall partially remains today but the moat is still in tact and is now full of fish which you can feed - we've done so on a couple of occasions.

That evening we met up with Lawrence who, by now, had earnt the nickname "Tour Guide" as he's been here before and knows his stuff!! We decided to go and watch the Monks Prayer/Chant at the main temple in the Old City. Later, we went to an Indian because Lawrence had 'heard of a good place'!! Upon arrival, sitting down and ordering some drinks to our horror we realised it was a vegetarian only Indian!!!!!!!!!!! So, great tour guide - rubbish restaurant picker!!! (Kie wasn't a massive fan of the rubbery tofu - evident from his chewing of it, and the quick removal from the mouth into the nearby plant pot!!!)

Yesterday Kie went White Water Rafting with Lawrence and had an awesome day, although he forgot to take a camera so he's going to try and get some pictures off some of the other guys that went. As it's the end of the wet season here, the river was quite high and flowing pretty fast! Some of the rapids were amazing and on one set the group even swam through instead of going on the boat, which is probably one of the scariest things Kie's ever done. As drowning wasn't all that appealing to Sophie, while Kie fought his way through the rapids, Sophie chilled out in the Old City for the day by feeding the fish and sunbathing in the hostels garden, which she later enjoyed rubbing in Kie's face - although the sunburn wasn't too fun!

So far we're really enjoying Chiang Mai and we're debating whether to do trekking here or at a later destination (probably Chiang Rai). Later today we're going, with Lawrence, to a Thai cookery school called Baan Thai to learn how to cook some of the dishes we've been eating here. (Yes, this may come as quite a shock to you Dad Faunch and Nan Judge ha ha) Tomorrow we're looking into going to either Tiger Kingdom or Elephant Camp, both look amazing. So far the plans stand, to head to Pai on Tuesday and then onto Chiang Rai which is further North of Thailand and where we'll be crossing into Laos on Saturday-ish!!

So if you don't hear from us, don't panic - we'll be on tinternet as soon as we can be to update you all on our whereabouts.

Take care, lots of love Sophie and Kie - miss you all xx