Baan Ramida Chiang Mai

... from 'ready to kill if I must' mode.
F*CK me that was a scary moment, but I provide the detail not just to relive it, but to give advice to those who may read this blog.
With dogs - never, ever back down. Like most animals dogs can sense fear, and will react to it. That's the reason why people that fear dogs are attacked by them more often, or at least hounded by them more (forgive the pun). It's the same if you just don't like dogs - they won't like you either. I ...

... up over 3,000 feet before it croaked... hope at least it found a few bananas to eat along the way.

Thailand is the fourth country we've hit since the start of our trip 6 weeks ago. Everywhere we go, people think I'm a local; they speak to me in VNese, Cambodian, Laotian or Thai and outside of VN, they are all surprised when I tell them I can't understand. Apparently, I look VNese or Cambodian or Laotian or Thai or all 4 at once, which ...

... a connection that neither of us forgot since we first met. Before I left New Zealand my mother said why don’t I look him up on Facebook (ah the modern times), as she knew I had often thought about him, and had tried looking for him. Sure enough I found him, we chatted over the Internet over numerous hours of Skype chats.  Vlasis then came to Thailand and was here for the last few weeks. It has been a crazy time with all the VSO work things, hospital checks, me getting a ...

... umbrellas. Bells were hung by visitors along the roof line for good luck, it gave the place an enchanting atmosphere.

Not long after we arrived, dark clouds started to roll in from the horizon and it didn't look good. We took it as a sign to leave so headed back to the tuk tuk and waited for the remainder of the group to return before we headed back to town. The remainder of the day was spent by the pool relaxing, drinking beer and eating peanuts!

... Starting off on the cocktails you can tell how this one goes, bar crawl with the most awesome live music and onto to the 'Spicy' nightclub we seem to just take over the stage, none of us seem to have any idea when we got back to the hotel, there is mentions of a 7am finish, what me, nooo?? Like a Manchester work night out but in hotter climes.

Oooooh dear small headache and a 14 hour trip back on the train to Bangkok, well worth it tho! The toilet on the train this time was ...

... cost of all that plus mixers at the end of the night, but despite on having enthuiastically ordered four bottles of the stuff, it only came to 140 bhat each (about 2 pounds 50!)

All in all, a brilliant few days! We have since headed north and are now in a little town called Pai. Ask anyone about this and all that they can tell you is "its just really chilled". When you get here you understand what they mean. But thats a whole other entry!

love love love

xxxxx

We have done quite a lot in Chiang Mai. From the Market where even I (Ian) managed to buy some clothes, to meeting the Nottingham boys (Andy, Haim and Joe), going to the zoo and learning to meditate for 2 days with some monks. To be quick here the most interesting part was Victoria struggling to stay quiet for 24 hours during the meditation retreat. You have never seen her struggle with anything so much in her life :-)

... but only 1 or 2 go to high school in a town near Chiang Mai. I wish we had spent more time with the people in the village. I would have liked to hear more about their lives. We began our hike back via a different route. Most of our trekking today is downhill which seems like it should be easier, but I find is ********* my legs and knees. Most of the time it was better to let the person in front of me go ahead and jog down the hill a bit. I had to be careful to not slip on loose ...

... of Libra Guesthouse to keep our rooms and let us change in there too. They really are so kind to all their customers (second time I've been, and I would definitely recommend to anyone). As if to prove how good they were, Nu offered to drive me on the back of his bike to get some tickets for the bus to Bangkok. We did want to leave that night to get back down south for the islands, and to meet up with Gary (Pete's mate who was doing a PADI scuba ...

... and restaurants. We end the night with an hours foot massage for £3 and head back to the hotel. Day 24 This morning we walked along to the main street through the night market to catch a cab to the Zoo, which is towards the mountains but really not very far. It costs £150 baht (£3) in a taxi but on reflection we really ought to have taken a tuk-tuk to save a bit of cash (we thought it was further away than it was). We get tickets that include trams (thank ...