Up north in Chiang Mai

Well the overnight train (1st class in a sleeper - we had too!) was a nice trip....but bugger me if Chiangmai was not as hot, or hotter than Bangkok ! It is also a lot dryer than we expected - we were thinking lush tropical rainforests? Supposedly its a big centre for trekking - but this is me and Josie, do we look like trekkers? For a start, it is too bloody hot. Secondly, the treks are more about the people of the hill tribes - and well, to be honest, Josie and I are not really into that. If it was scenic and crowded with animals, well yes - but people we would not be able to understand living as they have for hundreds of years - just not our cup of tea. Not to mention the horror stories we have heard from Brett and Amanda about the elephant ride that usually goes with those trips. We wanted Josie to be able to work with some elephants, but not ride on them.

So, with elephant volunteering looking decidedly poor - we took a day in our nice air conditioned guesthouse - fairly basic, but at $8US a night - to adjust. It is much cheaper than Africa in Thailand - and if you really wanted to scrimp you could get by probably on $10 US for a couple up here (that is accomodation and all meals, but not beer) !! We were still both struggling for motivation, and formalising plans to head home sooner rather than later.

All we were managing, was cowering in air-con coffee shops and restuarants and then trips to the Night Bazaar shopping. Given the heat, that was knocking us about a fair bit, we decided to move to a guest house with a pool and try a thai cooking course for a day.

And then, well we had one of those good days and got over our lethargy !!

The cooking course was a lot of fun - the food delicious (hey, we cooked it ourselves!) and you can rightly demand a Thai night if you come and stay with us - when we have a home that is. The only negative was our fingers and anything we rubbed stung like crazy for about 4 hours after from chopping the chillies for the red curry paste !! We also found out from one of the fellow cookers, about a really good elephant rescue (which unfortunately was booked fully on the website)...

After heading home for a swim and a kip (hey, we had eaten 6 main courses) we then jumped in a tuk tuk and headed into town. We decided to try the elephant rescue office, to find out what else they had on offer and surprise surprise, a little bit of talking got us in for a week !! Well this is big news obviously - 7 days for working directly with the elephants - has Josie in a bit of a head spin. In fact, her eyes were teary all through dinner with the excitement !!

We then headed to the Friday night Muay Thai Kickboxing. On the way, we had a bit of an accident - our dickhead (excuse the language but he was) of a driver pulled out in front of a moterbike driver...who slammed into us pretty bloody hard and hit the deck like a sack of spuds. And what does our driver do - takes off like a madman, obviously not wanting to get caught. So once we worked out we were not hurt, and hanging on for grim life as this madman sped through the streets getting our tuk up on 2 wheels....I started yelling at him to slow down and stop...of course everytime he says "slow down, yes" and continues to speed along. Well Josie joins in, and we really give it too him to stop. Which he does, refuses to go back and kicks us out - before disappearing into the night.

Josie wants us to head back to see if the poor dude on the bike is ok, so we slog it back through the streets and eventually find him on the side the road. He is alright, a bit banged up and in a bit of shock....we try and explain what happened, but as we couldn't get his taxi number - we are not of much use !!

So we try again, and make it to the kick boxing.... it is not a bad night, capped of with a fight between an Aussie and this giant Welshman. The Aussie ends up battering him convincingly and we head home feeling pretty chuffed with ourselves - just one of those days.

And now, we are starting to feel thailand, and going home early seems a bit rash...I mean, this could be a last holiday for a while !

So now the plan reads thus, 1 week working with elephants in the jungle (going to be hot but Josie will be beyond happy), down to Koh Tao island for a week for me to do my PADI diving and Josie to work at an animal rescue for a week, then down to Krabi for a week, to kayak around the special coastline and fish, a week at the Trang islands, before heading over to Malaysia to have a beer with Brett & Amanda before returning home !!

Well, it sounds like a grand plan...we will see how we feel at the end of the Kao Tao stay for the last few weeks. Next update will be post elephant....where there is a genuine risk I may not be able to drag my wife away !!