Today is yet another early start (this will be a running theme also) and I am picked up from my hostel to go to my Thai cookery course! We drive a few minutes and arrive at a lovely little cooking school. Two small groups gathered in two rooms (my group was only 5 people). We start with introductions and discussing our favourite Thai foods- my new fave massoman. We then choose what dishes we will make during the day. 5 courses and 3 choices for each. Once everyon...

Today we have an early start again and get dressed for a day of elephant play. A minivan (yes not a tuk tuk!) picks us up from our hostel and we head to the elephant nature park. A quick nap for me on the journey after watching an introductory documentary on the nature park and how it came to be! We drive through the forest and hills and end up at a beautiful clearing full of little herds of elephants. After departing from the van we head into wooden huts bursti...

An early start (surprise surprise- and no, these early starts have not made me change my ways and become a morning person!) we (auzzie room mate and a couple of girls from Glasgow) get a tuk tuk to take us tiger kingdom. Just an hour or so away from the city. We arrive and are presented with the decision of which tigers we want to see. Most expensive for youngest, cheapest oldest- guess you get that with people too eh?! Anyway we decide on a combo deal for the yo...

So we arrive at the border of Thailand and identified other people who were heading to chiang mai and (once again) take a tuk tuk to the bus station. He drops us off on a road pointing that the station is somewhere down there... As we walk aimlessly down the road a very slow moving bus with a woman beckoning to us approaches claiming Chiang mai is the destination. Dubiously we board and find other recent border crossers also heading to chiang mai so relax a littl...