L C Condotel Chiang Mai

... which was ahead of ours, and sporting a hideously tight bikini, which literally left nothing to the imagination. Fortunately my hangover had vanished by this point otherwise I would surely have been sick overboard. Susan had in fact initially been a passenger on this behemoth’s vessel, but so concerned was she about its stability that she sensibly fled to the raft Sally and I were on. Our bamboo raft experience lasted maybe fifteen minutes, and was more or less a waste of time ...

... the countryside surrounded by rice paddies. We chose different recipes to each other so first it was green and yellow curry, then coconut and tom yam soup followed by chicken with cashew nuts and papaya salad! We then had lunch! And afterwords made puddings - mango and sticky rice, banana and coconut milk follower by spring rolls and Pad Thai! What a feast! It was great and we met lots of nice people including Ian and Liz an English couple who we planned to go elephant training ...

... on through the jungle, crossing the river several times via a series of half rotten wooden planks, fallen trees and loose rocks. I love this sort of thing but I am a little nervous with a £400 SLR camera dangling from my shoulder. The views here simly can't be missed. Streams of light peering through the canopy give the jungle an amazing light offering the photographer beautiful streams backed by steep slopes of deep green palms. It's bloody hot though ...

... us think twice. “Why not spend another day with Yui?” Why not indeed! Day two of the cooking school was shared with a group of Aussies who were on their second trip through Chiang Mai and also alumni of Yui’s school. Today’s fare consisted of stuffed cucumber soup, papaya salad (again, but well worth it), pad thai (again, but well worth it), pangang chicken (including red curry paste we made from scratch ourselves), banana cake ...

... it was worth seeing it to say I've seen it. Things included sucking up a clear liquid and releasing it into another bottle for it to turn black, playing ping pong, bursting balloons with darts released by girl's hmmm! Lol The next morning we headed to floating market which like the rest of Thailand is a market place, lol, who would have guessed. Well worth it though for $18 for most of the day to tour the market as it was about an hour away. $18 was for both of ...

... that we went to another club that was good, dj was banging out some decent trance tunes. Have no idea what time we got in, think it was about 9am lol. Didnt do alot during the day sleapt abit then was pretty ill for the rest the day. Today we are off to chang rai and have a three hour wait for the bus so am just killing time. Really enjoyed the water festival, has been boiling hot here every since so kind of miss not having buckets of ice cold water poured down my back lol.

... by Burma and India. The pagodas were built with square cross-sections with Buddhas in niches or octagonal shaped with 8 Buddhas in niches around the pagoda or bell-shaped cross-sections with Buddha on top with 4 smaller pagodas at the corners. The second period was from 1356 - 1441 and was mainly influenced by Sukhothai. An example of this style are pagodas with elephants. The third period from 1441 - 1525 was known as the Lanna Golden Age. Sukhothai art ...

... we had to climb up a tre dodgy platform and walk on the elephants back to the seat. our elephant was pregnant i didnt realise how big they are but they are sooo dosile. we went on the elephants around a mountain and back down through the river where we could buy bannanas to feed them. after this we drove about 10 mins to see a traditional thai village then we walked about an hour to a waterfall through thier national park. the ...

... sko. <br><br>Khantoke kveld<br>Så var det tid for en felles kulturkveld med klassen kl.7. Opplegget var i et stort åpent låve lignende hus. Der satt vi på puter rundt små lave bord og spiste mat vi ikke visste hva var fra felleskåler. Underholdningen var thai dansing til thai musikk. Noe av det kunne minne om dansingen fra filmen "Memoirs of a Geisha ". På slutten av kvelden var det pittelitt fyrverkeri. Andreas ble så mett av all maten og sa "Nå er jeg så mett, at hvis det hadde ...

... but different. <br><br><br>Back to the hotel and picked up for our afternoon tea tour of the Doi Suptep temple perched high on the hill overlooking the city. Great view. Had a guide and driver to ourselves. Climbed the 306 steps to the top, looked at the Buddha, paintings and another Golden Stupor. Descended the steps and went to the Jade factory across the road where we saw how they cut, sculpted ...