10th November

So we had finally arrived in Chiang Mai. We hopped off the train (well I rather stumbled under the weight of my bag!) and were immediately accosted by men and women holiding up signs with names on and shouting 'Tuk Tuk...where you go?'. Having already contacted the hotel were under the assumption that we too would have our own little man waiting for us holding a sign with our names on......nope! Instead we suffered another 15 minutes of people accosting us with tuk tuks, hotels, treks etc before we finally gave in and went and bartered for a tuk tuk.

We eventually rock up at the hotel, which upon closer inspection looks suspiciosuly like and old prison or detention centre (4 floors of long corridors with rooms on either side- pictures will prove what we mean!), and dump our bags. We have a quick wander round the immediate area while waiting for our room to be cleaned - pass a tesco's which in typical 'brits on holiday fashion' was something of a novelty for us. Back to the hotel, room isn't too bad considering said comments about it's prison like qualities and for a fiver a night it's been our cheapest hotel yet. We catch up on some sleep for a good few hours having not slept much on the sleeper train.

We end up spending the afternoon/evening wandering and exploring Chiang Mai. The old city was full of mini Wat's (temples) and we ende up chatting to an expat who ran a travel agency - nice man from Southend (?) who must have looked about 65 but still had 3 year old twins with his young thai wife (ahem...nuff said). We then wandered over to the infamous Night Bazaar which luckily for us is quite near our hotel. We grab some food in one of the market food courts and wander up and down all the stalls, which to Paul's delight when on for what seemed like miles. However, after the first few stalls you start to feel like you are on a conveyor belt as they all just sell the same (often tacky) things - it's a wonder how they even make an money!

11th November

We head out early and go back to the expat guy we'd met to hire bikes and upon his reccomendation we decide to do a bit of a day trip up to Doi Suthep - the main temple in Chiang Mai.

Takes us a while to navigate the traffic and some of the one way roads inside the Old City but we finally make it to Chiang Mai University (one of the best in Thailand apparently) where we park our bikes and get on a taxi to take us up to the mountain. Lazy you may think but (much to Paul's annoyance - he was adamant that he could get up there on a bike no problem) the expat guy (never did catch his name!) assured us that it was a strenuous journey and so we weren't about to argue with one of the locals! Said taxi was heaven as it snaked, or rather Jenson Buttoned it, around this steep mountain for what seemed like ages. We did see a few people along the way who were attempting to get up there on bikes but by the time we got to the top Paul admitted that it would have taken hours on a bike and we'd have probably shed a stone or two in sweat alone.

Temple was pretty impressive - a mammouth 213 steps up to the actual building itself. What annoyed us though is that there was a big sign saying 'foreigners this way'.....we glady obliged only to find out that as 'foreigners' we had to pay to get in. It would seem the locals have a get out of jail free card on this one - although god knows how they determine who looks 'local' and who doesn't. We did spot a few westerners just ignoring the sign and carrying on up (knowone ever checked our ticket in the end!) - however, that made us feel moraly superior, that we'd done the right thing and paid to get in! Anyway, the temple, like those we saw in Bangkok, this too was overly ornate - all bright gold turrets, bells and statues with lots of people burn ing inscence and making offerings to the buddhas.

We only had about and hour to look round as our taxi was waiting for us, so we quickly whizzed in and out of the little temples and spent some time at the look out point which afforded spectacular views out over the while of Chiang Mai - it was worth getting up there just for that. Then it was back in the taxi (I say taxi - they are actually called Songethaw's and are like pick up trucks with covered seats one the back.) and back down the mountain. This time i was feeling a little queesy by the time we got to the bottom thanks to the constant winding back down the mountain.

So we collected the bikes again and were on our way......not for long. The chain on my bike came off! Luckily we'd stopped outside some shops and as Paul was frantically tying to get it back on again a local guy also came to try and help us. Thank god he managed to get a screwdriver from one of the local shopkeepers otherwise it would have been a LONG way to push the bike back.

Crisis averted! It takes Paul at least 5 minutes to wash the thick black oil of his hands with our only supply of water and some BMA hand sanitizer - are we resourceful or what! Off we go again.....sods law - this time Paul's chain pops right off. God only know how he managed to do it but this time the chain was well and truly wedged/wrapped around the gear spokes. No amount of handy work was going to sort this out. So we resgin ourselves to the fact that we are going to have to push the bike all the way back and start to panic that we may have to pay a hefty whack to get it fixed. Luckily we pass a garage and on a whim wander in and (again in typical brit fashion) just point at the bike and try to look helpless. It worked! They took pity, stopped what they were doing and tried to help fix the bike for us.

Lets put this in perspective.......it took three men, 20 minutes, a hammer, a cro bar, and some hefty screwdrivers to lierally take the bike apart unwrap the chain and fix it. That's how screwed the bike was. Once finished we repeatedly said our thank you's and I tried to give them a few hundred bhat, which they wouldnt take. However, I eventaully managed to make them take 100 bhat (2 pounds!!) to try and show our gratitude.

With the second crisis finally avereted we were back on our way. We cycled over to the most beautiful little park in the corner of the city and spent a few hours chilling there, watcing the world go by as they say! We ended the day by cycling over to the riverside area and back before handing the bikes back and having dinner in the Old City.

12th Novemeber

ELLEEEEPPPHHAANNNTTSS!!!

So here's the deal. Chiang Mai is known for it its Hill Tribe treks and usually inculded in these treks is an elephant ride of some sorts. We'd alredy heard not so nice things about the way some elephants were treated and we'd met people along the way who had seen it first hand and said it was a bit dodgy. So I wanted to steer clear of the elephant shows, rides anything like that. I'd read about a place called the Elephant Nature Park that was a sanctuary for over 34 distressed elephants from all over Thailand - http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/index.htm. We booked ourselves onto a day tour which proved to be one of the best things we've done so far.

We were picked up early doors and it took about and hour and a half to drive out to this sanctuary right out in the middle of jungle - stunning location. On the way they showed us this mini documentary about the plight of 'domesticated' elephants i.e. those elephants not in the wild, and I was in tears straight away. There are still no laws to protect domesticated elephants as they are (wrongly) considered as pets and on a par with cats and dogs - they showed some footage of a baby elephant been dragged along a tourist street with its owner and when it stopped it was rocking back and forward on its legs which is a sign of stress (apparently in the wild they feel vibrations through the ground to sense danger - so you can imagine what it must be like for an elephant on a busy street). Fact - about 10 years ago there were a 100,000 domesticated elephants and that has now dropped by around 95%!!
Once we arrived (there was about 37 of us in total and split into groups of about 12) they showed us around the sanctuary.

They also rescue dogs, cats and water buffalo so there were just animals everywhere - me and paul would have just gone and spent the day with the cats and dogs let alone the elephants.

Anyway, we got to this one look out post and our guide randomly said hello to this guy who was sitting about 5 yards away and when he replied me and Paul looked at each other and were like …'hang on a minute that sounds like Lou Carpenter……wait that looks like Lou carpenter……OMG that IS Lou Carpenter". So by this stage me and Paul were wetting ourselves and the tour guide had some idea he was famous from our reaction - he was like i'll ask him for a picture for you (god bless Mr Bird our tour guide!) SO WE DID - hell to the yeah! We had a nice little chat with him and bumped into him throughout the day as he was on the tour too! It took all my strength not to blurt out something like 'STREWTH, it's hot here today!'.

Back to the elephants - so we got to feed them twice, we got to go down to the river and bathe them, which involved throwing buckets of water over them, we watched (from a viewing platfomr) them all playing in the mud after their bath and we generally just got to spend time close to them - I have a video of one of them giving me a kiss with his trunk!

The best thing is that our money was going to a good cause - they explained that it's all about eco tourism. Our money is helping to go towards to food costs (Costs 2200 pounds on fruit per month alone!) and buying new land - they have just acquired 2,000 acres at a sight they are calling the kingdom of heaven, which is a place they are going to use to help rehabilitate some of the elephants back into the wild.

Hearing some of the stories about what had happened to some of the elephants was heartbreaking. All 35 of them (+ 2 babies) are rescued. There was one called Jokiu who was completely blind - she had been bought by loggers and forced to work in the forests. Lek (the lady who had actually set up the sanctuary) was telling us that she'd lost here baby as when it was born and so Jokiu fell into depression and refused to work. Therefore to force her to work the loggers used to fire a sling shot at her eyes, which eventually caused blindness. There was another elephant who was addicted to amphetamine as loggers has injected it to try and keep it working, another had lost the use of one of its back legs after stepping on a land mine and the elephant we had fed in the morning, Bou lei, had bad back legs from being been forced to stand upright all the time during elephant shows etc.

I can go on and on about how amazing the day was but I will stop there. My 'Elephant Nature Park' T-shirt will always be a reminder that I've 'been there, done that!'.

13th November

After the excitement (and expense) of the day before we just ended up spending the day chilling. Went to the park again and took a picnic with us. Spent the afternoon just watching all the cute little thai babies (not in a dodgy way of course!) running around, fed the fish and got attacked by a hoard of pigeons as we were feeding said fish!

We've noticed that parks tend to be quite a communal thing in South East Asia i.e. people playing local sports, playing instruments or having dance/yoga/thai chi lessons. It's makes a nice change - i'm pretty sure if i went to a park back home and busted out sdome dance moves or sat there playing an instrument i'd be looked at as if i was some sort of freak!

Spent the evening in the Night Bazaar again but this time met up with Lynne and Elaine for some foodage and catching up.

14th November

Thai Cooking Class - Masterchef Goes Large here we come!

Me, Lynne and Paul booked ourselves onto a one day cooking course and it was eventful to say the least!

We started off with a tour of the market and looking at all the fresh ingredients where it quickly became clear that our guide Boom was a rather 'loose cannon' and very hands on. She took a shine to me and Paul - Paul in particlar and spent the rest of the day larking around with us and on occasion randomly holiday our hands or bear hugging us from behind. Was nice though (not necessarily the bear hugging) but made the day good fun.

Our 'classroom' consisted of lots on mini Kitchen's all laid out in a 'square polo' (those at the BMA will know exactly what i mean, ha!). We'd all chosen our dishes before hand and started off by making our soups - mine was chicken in Coconut milk and Paul's was Tom Yam soup - simples!!!

Next they showed us how to cook different types of rice (normal and sticky rice - ready for pudding which was mango with sticky rice - yummy!) and also spring rolls, which were surprisingly easy. In between the cooking of the spring rolls we learnt how to make a proper curry paste ready for our red and green curries. In the afternoon we made said curries, a noodle dish each and then they also made us cook a vegetable dish flambe style!!! Naturally I S*%t myself and on the collective count of three threw half of my veg over the pan rather than in it so my flame wasn't as impressive as Paul's.

Still, it was good food and we all sat down for a late afternnoon lunch with our creations. We then were handed our certificates - we are now Thai Chefs....FACT and cookbooks and waddled back onto the bus home - I was pratcially having food triplets by this stage!

Spent the evening with Lynne and Elaine in a bar and alarmingly, on the way home saw some idiot walking a baby elephant down the street trying to get tourists to buy banana's to feed it, just like in one of the video's we'd seen at the elephant sanctuary. It was one of the most heart wernching things i've seen, this poor baby rocking on it's feet, a sure sign that it was stressed. We just had to walk on by quickly as it was too upsetting and at the end of the day there is nothing you can do apart from not participate in any way so that you do not encourage them.

15th November

Time to leave Chiang Mai. We Packed up, checked out and grabbed lunch before heading to the station for our sleeper train back to Bangkok. Not much to say ....you all know the score with sleeper trains by now!!