I flew from Ko Samui to Bangkok the other day. I met up with my new tour group. Everyone is very nice but not quite what I expected. Its more a range of age groups and not as lively as my last group. New tour leader is a Thai girl called Pauline who is just lovely and all girly and giggly and has the most beautiful long dark hair. Had quite an early first night and started exploring Bangkok the next day.

We went to the main sights in Bangkok: the Wat Pho, the Grand Palace, and Wat Phra Kaew. The temples are really ornate and beautiful, but in a different way to in China - they're more showy and everything is gold! I had a bit of a wander and got lost in the city... god knows what i would have done without my faithful Lonely Planet! Ended up spending quite a lot of time walking up and down Khao San Road - the backpacker area - bought some nice tshirts and lots of jewellery and had the most amazing Pad Thai off a street stall which cost 25 baht (about 50p i think)! Last night we got the night train up to Chiang Mai. The overnight trains were really cute - the beds are comfier than on the trains in China but its not as smooth - it was a bumpy ride!!

Arrived in Chiang Mai this morning and we all did a cooking school for most of the day. We went to the market and the teacher explained all the different foods and what they use them for - we got all fresh ingredients and then made our way to this little farmhouse outside of the city. It was great - she showed us how to do everything - made it seem really easy - quite an achievement - me cooking real food! We made pad thai, spicy soup and thai green curry, which was all delicious... we were stuffed and I took some lovely pictures of it all! Also met some young girls who were doing a trip in the opposite direction who said how lovely Laos was so Im really looking forward to that now!

This afternoon we went to the most famous temple in Chiang Mai which is a bit outside of the city, and it was really amazing, a bit different to the ones in Bangkok. We saw the buddhist monks chanting and some of us (including me) got blessed by one of the monks and had the string tied around us as we were wished a healthy happy life, which was nice. Hopefully that means nothing catastrophic is going to happen on my trip!!

This evening we went to the night bazaar which was really cool. I bought another piece of jewellery. I believe I have developed a serious medical condition where I cannot stop buying little bits of cheap traveller jewellery. Do you think If I see a doctor they will be able to treat it??

Heading towards Laos tomorrow. Very exciting.

Lots of love to everyone.xx