Chiang Mai

It's now our fourth day in Chiang Mai and we really like it here. It's a nice town and the people are friendly. There is an amazing array of markets to explore and lots of yummy food to eat, too!

We signed up for a cooking course and it was really good! We drove out to the country side, to this famous chef's house where we spent the day learning about six different dishes. The teachers were really good and we made lots of different things that all came out quite yummy! We got to eat everything we cooked and lots of people told us that they did this before and got sick because they just overate!

What a great day though! We took part in a tour of the local markets first and learned about Thai ingredients and then put it all to practice later. We made Chicken in a Coconut Broth, Red curry with fish, papaya salad, steamed banana cake, mushroom stir fry and something else... I don't remember now. Anyway, it was really good fun!

We also explored Chiang Mai's temples or wat's and visited all the markets. Went for a Thai massage with Phil and I'm still aching from it. Phil's feet were apparently very tense so quite painful when the guy massaged them! It was still good though.

Tomorrow, we will go on a trek in the area called Chiang Dao and will also have a go at whitewater rafting and bamboo rafting, as well as visiting some elephants and a waterfall. It is meant to be beautiful, so we are excited! The next day, we will make our way to the Golden Triangle and then we will make our way into Lao by slowboat! It will take us about two days to get there, which will be good fun I think!

We'll be leaving Thailand quite soon, but there is so much to see and we will return here before going to Cambodia and we also want to go to the south of Thailand, too so we can spend some time on the islands there. Anyway, it's all good fun!