Hey everyone, Well as you know I am back in Chiang Mai and it was sooo soo good to have a hot shower when we got back to the hotel as well as to sleep in a proper bed! Even though Natalie is staying at the Elephant Nature Park fo 2 weeks we persuaded her to come back to Chiang Mai for the night to check e-mails etc and so she kipped on our floor. After we had all had showers and sorted our stuff out we checked e-mails and it was so nice to have some contact with the outside world again! We then went to the night bazaar for a bit and then for dinner we went to Pizza Hut which was great!! Then, after a week-long detox, we headed to a bar for one drink which as per usual ended up being many drinks and we ended up staying in the bar until closing time playing very loud games of cheat, snap and s***head! We all only got to sleep about 4am which wasn't good cos Nat had to get up at about 8.30 to go back to the elephant office to go to the nature park. And cos Paul and I needed to pick up some stuff from the office and cos we didn't want natalie to walk on her own we went to the office with her. Urgh! After saying goodbye to Nat,Paul and I headed for some much needed coffee at starbucks and then to the post office (which was open this time) to send various parcels. Had a very lazy day sorting out my return trip to bangkok, reading, sleeping and checknig e-mails! Today I have been on a thai cookery course at an organic farm outside of Chiang Mai which was absolutely great. They picked me up and I met the 4 other people who were doing it as well and then we went to a local market where the guy explained about different rice and things we would cook with and we got to hve a look around where I saw loads of pig heads all lined up - grose! Then we went to the farm which was lovely - v.peaceful. We had a tour around the vegetable garden and saw all the different things growing from chillis to papaya. Then we got to work making a red curry chilli paste which was hard workbut lots of fun! During the day we made red chilli curry which was surprisingly easy to make, papaya salad, mango and sticky rice which is yummy, chicken with cashew nuts and pad thai - all very tasty! I was quite impressed with my curry at lunchtime when we ate the first three dishes. Hopefully the others wll taste as good tongiht for dinner! In Chiang Mai until thursday when I'm getting the nightbus down to Bangkok to meet a girl who is also teaching on Koh Phangan and then we are getting the train down to our island to being training and to meet up with the others. Rather looking forward to getting there now. Hope everyone is good and that exams aren't too stressful. Hope to hear from you all soon. Lots of love Sam xxx