The Castle Chiang Mai

... met one of the elephant keepers. We played a game together and he taught us how to clean our teeth using tobacco and dodgy leaf picked up from some tree in the jungle. It was quite nice to be able to chat with the locals even though we didn't really understand him that much but we still managed to all laugh and get along. The best part of the evening was when he took us to see the sleeping elephants. It was quite an amazing experience to see such huge animals restfully sleeping ...

... bazaar where it actually possible to shop without getting crowded by others on the sidewalk. We also stopped in at one of the very many massage shops on our street. 120 baht for a 1-hour Thai massage. That's less than $4 and it's not customary to tip in Thailand. It was my first of three Thai massages I would get on this trip and it involves wearing this loose cotton outfit sort of like scrubs. They massage you but also stretch you and contort your body in ...

... bar. I asked her if she was travelling by herself, she said yes. I told her that I was also travelling solo and asked if I could join her. She agreed so we talked for a while then got some dinner and checked out the bar scene.

She was this blonde girl from Vancouver named Kerri. Surprisingly, she was only 18 and she'd already seen much of India and quite a bit of SE Asia as well. After hanging out at a rooftop bar for a few drinks we ...

... t see this as begging and are grateful to the monk for allowing them to make merit by giving food. For a monk to refuse is seen as being very rude. Some more monk trivia... they are required to shave their heads and eybrows and are not allowed to wear underwear under their robes- in case you ever wondered. Roaming the temple grounds there were several stray dogs lying about the area. I ...

... on Geoff's motocycle after the match on the wet streets, but sure did beat my usual Tuk Tuk. Got back just after midnight so was a bit tired at class today, but I made it in on time and Geoff didn't surface until an hour late!

Today was the toughest class yet. I was partnered with a girl today who is a Polish American who lives in India! She's done the course before and is using this as a refresher. She's a bit intimidating as she likes to get quite ...

... a songthaew. I speak no Thai. I know that the yellow songthaews go to Ban Bo Hin, where the farm is. But I know that I first have to get to Central--like a bus station for songthaew transrers.

I ask the songthaew "Do you go Central?". "Yes, get in". We ride for 5 minutes then he pulls over --there were 5 passengers- and ate breakfast as we waited. THen he drove another ten minutes in a direction and area unfamiliar to ...

... the door in his face. We celebrated our 4 quid victory ... it's the principal don't you know ... plus that's our daily food budget. Two ferries and two hours later we arrived at the company's office in Krabi where we were told our connecting bus would be there in 30 minutes ... an hour and a half later it arrived and took us 10 minutes down the road to Krabi Bus Station where we waited another hour and a half for our ride to Surat Thani. We waited patiently but when our ...

... temple which I posted pictures of. The had all kind of animal statues in the garden but im still trying to figure out the Donald Duck statue eating with chopsticks(any ideas please enlighten me). Chiang Mai reminds you of a hippie town in Colorado but with more traffic. Not as crazy as Bangkok but still a bit wild. Walked over to the Saturday night bazaar and bought a couple of pair of Thai pants (big roomy pants) and sticky rice and mango(pretty good ...

... watermelon and pineapple. After dinner we sat around the campfire and talked. Nathan and I went to bed at 9pm. It was a cold night and we rugged up, but we were still cold. Nathan woke up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet. He couldn’t find his torch and when he got back to bed couldn’t find his sleeping bag so just curled up in his jumper in a ball and froze!