Hello Everybody!!

Right, we know what you're thinking - our blogs are a little like buses at the moment, you don't hear from us for days and then two pop up almost at once.

Where to start!? Today we've spent an absolute fortune but everything we've seen and done was worth every penny - even if it was a week's budget, oops. As well as that, last night we became Gordon, Delia and Ainsley (Lawrence) at the Thai cooking class. So, we started our evening at half 4, when we went to a local market with our instructor who talked us through all the different ingredients available for Thai dishes - and gave us alternatives to get back home! We then went on to cook 4 dishes and made our very own curry paste using pestle and mortar. Between us we cooked some of the dishes we've become accustomed to over the last few weeks, including Thai Green Curry, Pad Thai and Spring Rolls - during the folding of the Spring Rolls Sophie was told she made her Spring Rolls small like her body!!!!!! Of course Kie and Lawrence found this highly amusing! It was a great success and we all enjoyed ourselves - it was a nice way to say bye to Lawrence on his last evening in Chiang Mai.

We started today bright and early (after a late night of watching Arsenal!) We'd hired our tuk-tuk driver yesterday for £6 and we had his services for the whole of today. So, off we set towards the Elephant Camp up in the mountains. When we arrived we bought a package deal for £30 each which included; watching the elephants bath, watching the elephant show and riding an elephant for near an hour through the mountains to the Long Neck Tribe village. When we first got there, the elephants were already enjoying a nice bath in the river (look out for the photos of the women poo-catchers!!!!!) We headed towards the show ring and really enjoyed an hour long show which included things like; the elephants dancing, painting, playing football and basketball. Afterwards we were lucky enough to have some photos with the elephants and were able to stroke them before heading to our own personal elephant ride. When we got to the platform, our elephant was HUGE with massive tusks! We later found out he was the "Number 1" in the camp and was 30 years old. We rode up and over the mountains, not realising exactly how high we'd got. It was an absolutely amazing experience, and we were lucky enough to get photos on our elephant - which none of the other people did!

Once back on a more familiar form of transport we made our way to the King Cobra Show. Kie was a little more hesitant about this! We sat among a crowd of about 10 people and got up close and personal to about 7 snakes, including Sophie having a King Cobra wrapped around her shoulders - after some coaxing from Kie! We watched as one of the craziest family's we've ever met showed us their skills including one guy catching a snake in each hand and a third with his mouth - mental. There was also the baby boy of the family at about 5 years old, who got in the ring alone with the Jumping Snake and came very close to a biting!

Finally, we headed to Tiger Kingdom in the blazing sunshine where we were greeted by some very pushy staff trying to sell us one of many packages. In the rush, we decided that Kie would go into the cage with the 8 month old tigers and Sophie would go in with the 6 week old tigers for £11 each and two professional photo CD's for £4 each - not realising that it would have been better and cheaper to go into one cage together. After Kie had been in with the tigers, we had a long wait as everyone wanted to go in with the babies! During this time, we decided that we wanted to go in together so we bought another ticket (another £11!!) for the babies which turned out to be a really good decision with some great photo evidence.

Right everyone, we're totally shattered, burnt and hungry so we're off to feed our bellies and retreat to an early bed before the journey to our next destination, Pai, tomorrow morning.

We hope everyone's okay and not missing us too much!!! Take care, lots of love Sophie and Kie xx

Ps. A couple of things which might make you laugh - 1. A young rose selling girl in Bangkok challenged Kie to a game of thumb war by saying "come on ladyboy" - hilarious (and he cheated). 2. We were asked in Chiang Mai if Kie was on holiday with his daughter by one of the tuk-tuk drivers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Urm, no mate, she's my girlfriend!!)