RarinJinda Wellness Spa Resort Chiang Mai

... Quaver lug of Scotland know exactly what you went through, Di. I said a little prayer for her whilst being held by a drag queen (whats with her big square chin, camera angle my gluteus max...?!)

Jumped on my rickashaw and headed into temple territory, which is really nice. It's a small ...

... not shy.

Cookery classes have started and they are brilliant. We make about 6 dishes a day and I have learnt to make curries, stir frys, salads, soups and some puddings. My chillithreshold has doubled in a matter of days! Not sure how I'm going to cope going back to having no chilli in my food. I'll have to ahve some pizza soon and see!

There are some great bars in Chiang Mai particulalry the Roof Top bar which is literally a bar on a roof. You have a bit of a climb ...

... for the entire trip. It was quite entertaining due to the fact that the baby was just learning how to walk and would lose its balance and fall over, slide down hills on its stomach, and float down the rivers because it wasn't tall enough to walk down them.

The bamboo and white water rafting were both about an hour long and took up the second days afternoon. The bamboo rafting was slow and not as good as when we built our own raft ...

... Shauna keeps looking around...80 baht to rub my feet for half an hour...that is like $2.50 cdn....now a thai foot massage is amazing if ever here get one. So the gal commences to work my foot...and it feels great...then they work the calf muscles a bit and then they work the thigh and groin muscles a bit and move to the next foot...this is when Shauna came back....she was needing the groin area....Shauna was not impressed...I'm like "no happy ...

... they've picked up wholesale or off the back of a lorry. My bag has now actually burst its seams (sorry Dad) and I'm going to have to have a sort through as can't keep everything. The problem with this is that I've now slightly restricted myself as will have to come back through Chiang Mai before travelling home to buy all of you lovely people presents. By contrast the following night, I headed out of the old town (it's a walled square with a simple ...

... playing some Santana then suddenly six beautiful Thai girls came onstage and danced (swayed on the spot delicately really). Guest singers appeared and performed a song each. These included a gorgeous girl in nothing but white ugg boots and a tiny gold top and miniskirt combination. I have to say I rather enjoyed that one... she was very talented... Ahem. Naturally we left when an old man came on to sing his piece... We went to watch the Villa football ...

... still!) i felt faint, so sat down and rested for a while, the rest of the group walked on, but the guides assistant Pasee stayed behind to look after me. In the end i was glad to have struggled, i got to chill out for a good 20 minutes, and many more times on the way up. Pasee gave me extra water, carried my backpack, made me a fan (from a leaf, some string and a stick) made me a walking stick and gave me his bandana to wear (this he took off me at every stream so he ...

... day we wandered to the bus stop and followed the walls around the North of the city finally ending up in a shopping mall where I bought some new tennis shoes. Supper that night was back at the night market. Not to be outdone, Paul bought himself a new rucksack (he doesn't have as much will power as I do!) don't know how we will carry it as we are already laden. Sunday we met up at Geoff and Tings house and they took us on a tour of the university campus and onto the restaurant ...

... You can see how much Katie was enjoying herself, she was LOVING it! God knows how many bananas we bought for our elephant, but I think it was about 5 bunches and 3 sugar canes, and still she wanted more. It seemed to have the Marks Family appetite! Next on the list was mountain biking. We got back into the van (our group of 6 plus a guide) and headed up ...