Mae Nai Gardens Chiang Mai

... and keep our feet up, but I am a slow learner and body slammed our guide at least once in my failure to brake effectively. And though we looked, apparently we were too loud to see the shy Gibbon. They fed a lovely meal and we all returned to the hotel happy and safe.

Wednesday found me at the Siam Cookery School. I highly recommend it to anyone who goes to Chiang Mai. Pot picked me up promptly at 9am and we took ...

... had been looking forward to Thursday ever since we started planning this trip. Thursday was cooking class day at the “A Lot of Thai” cooking school. A vintage 1970 VW Bus arrived at the B&B at 9:30 to pick us up for our day of culinary discovery. Turns out there was a Belgian couple staying at the same place we were who were also signed up for the class. School is located on the patio of Yui’s house on the south side of town, and was ...

... hundreds of craft and food stalls are set up. It was all I could do to prevent myself from buying everything in sight! I managed to restrain myself and limit my purchases to a bag, two small material purses and a cotton scarf. The hundreds of food stalls sell the most intriguing looking stuff – most of which I can only guess at what it is. I have been tempted to try stuff but have been too wary about getting ill and unsure if it's veggie. Tonight I plunged ...

... cook is not a famous chef either. Instead it was a hole-in-the-wall, selling virtually everything Shan. As the signs read this shop (and all the others next door) served the local Shan, whether it is food, the casual lunch, Shan dresses, books, music or the astrologer. The lunch consisted of a Shan version of Khao Soi (Kyaukswe), Shan noodles with Shan tofu, which in fact is rather a kind of soy custard with a yellow creamy texture and no taste. Spicier was the Shan pickle ...

... on seats that had clearly been removed from cars and put on the boat and mostly read, listened to iPods and watched the scenery, or played cards. It ended up being nice quiet time, and I especially liked sitting at the front of the boat and hanging my feet out so they could catch some of the spray. We crossed the river to Thailand in the morning on May 1 (some nice structure for my trip, since I leave southeast asia on June 1) and got on a bus to ...

... bassinet, the pigs were being fed and the chickens were trying to peck up the scraps. We headed up one last hill to the upper part of the village where we will be staying. It has a large raised room with mattresses and mosquito netting . There is also a long table and benches for us to eat and socialize at. Boy has gone to prepare our dinner and we all just relax. There is a cooler filled with soda, iced tea, water and Chang beer. We help ourselves and record ...

... find the night bazaar to have a few beers and check out the local markets. Plan is to book some treking and elephant riding tomorrow so look out for the pics in a couple of days! Also could someone post the city score on here after they play tonight, it won't be on till 4.45 on the morning here and em's not up for stayin awake for it!!

... the sugar helps to counteract the heat of the chillies - but I can't be sure about that! On the smaller stalls there will be a huge container, sometimes just a bucket, with iced water that you simply help yourself to. In the more salubrious places you'll be given glasses of ice and you can choose to have mineral water, 'ordinary' filtered water from a jug or beer (they think we're very odd not to have ice in our beer). Yesterday, as we sat ...

... had 150 students. We took Hershey's candy to give out to the students. They seemed to enjoy the chocolate and the students enjoyed the children. Following the day's events we went to Jip's house for a Pork Pan dinner. We thought this was a pork dish; however, we were pleasantly surprised. We were in groups of 5=7 people. Each group had a pressed soy cooker with an open pan placed on top. You used a broth and added strips of meat and vegetables and individually ...

... be spared from the daily updates when we get there. If you're lucky ;)

I'm also going to really struggle to watch the England v Russia European qualifier when we get there, so I hope that our fellow trekkers don't mind a bit of BBC World Service radio action!


Love to you all,


Al & Katie xx