Day 1 - 26/02/09

Got to Chiang Mai by songthaew, then went to chack mail, hand in laundry and then Jemma, Lisa and I went for a thai massage. We went for dinner to a food court near the night market and then went shopping in the Night Market. It is brilliant bartering and getting a banter going with the sellers. Name it and you find it here!!!

Day 2 - 27/02/09

Not feeling fantastic this morning so decided to give bamboo rafting a miss. Slept till the others got back in the afternoon and woke up with energy and feeling refreshed. Lisa and I decided to go explore the old City. We walked to it, it was so much fun seeing the locals go about their lives. The school kids had just finished school for the day so they were out and about practicing their little english vocab on us. It was so hot, we came across a lady selling homemade freeze pops - 5 baht for 3 sticks - they were fab!!! We went to the Wat Phar Sing, but by this point I had been templed out and all the temples started looking alike!! We decided to get a tuk tuk and got the driver to take us around the perimeter of the Old City then back to our hotel. He even gave us commentary on all the sights we passed!!!

That evening we had our final dinner as only night we could all go out together. Went to the Anusarn food market and after that Lisa and I headed back to the Night Market for final purchases!!!

Day 3 - 28/02/09

Early start today after checking out. We went to the Baan Thai cookery school. Our first stop was to the market where we had a quick lesson abt Thai veggies and ingredients. From here we went to the school. There we learnt how to cook 3 dishes, I had a go at making Pad Thai, Tofu in Coconut soup and papaya salad. It was delicious and so easy except I overloaded the papaya salad with chillies (v v hot!!!), that was half the day gone.

We had a few hours to kill before heading to the train station for Bangkok, so Lisa and I went to the city in search for the post office. When we got to the post office it was shut as only open half day on Sat. So we went to look at the river and then went to the Watorwat Market - a fruit n flower market. We then headed to Anusarn Market and found a little post office stall and sent what seemed like the most expensive parcels in Thailand!!

Got back to the hotel just in time to head to the train station, grab some dinner and make our 13 hr journey to Bangkok!!!!