James and I have just installed ourselves into an internet café as there is no access at our hotel. It was brilliant to see that a good few of you are sharing our trip and lovely to hear from back home.

We all had a great time in Bangkok despite the frequent hijackings. Really weird to see Christmas trees and snowmen everywhere, and everyone wishing us happy new year. Alongside this, the whole country is in mourning over the King's sister who died last week of cancer, aged 84. So alongside the Christmas trees there are swathes of black and white ribbon everywhere. They love their King much more than we love our Queen.

For the record, and before Tony says it, it was my idea to travel to Chiang Mai on the overnight express train. Rationale being that as we would be travelling first class, we would arrive in Chiang Mai nicely refreshed after a good sleep and a shower on the train. This would save paying for a night in a hotel and would free up a day of sightseeing. (!)

I can only equate the comfort of our first class cabin to spending 13 hours lying on the floor of an old transit van crossing rough terrain! The toilet was not ensuite hence for psychological reasons, I ended up going 4 times. I know Lynda would relate to that! On the 2nd visit, I came across a lizard in the corridor. As I got back into my (top) bunk and looked up at the air vent only 12 inches above my face, I started to remember the horror film "Black Mamba". I spent the rest of the night looking like an Egyptian mummy wrapped from head to toe in my blanket struggling to breathe. Fair to say, none of us slept much and consequently collapsed once we had checked in to the hotel and missed most of the day.

We're having a quiet day today - bit of shopping, bit of massage then off on a day of elephant trekking and visiting the Long Neck hill tribe tomorrow.

Wish you were all here!

Sheila

Same day. After the hectic last few days, we decided to have a quite day today and do our own thing. Whilst James and Sheila were updating the blog, Sherie and I set of to do a bit of shopping in down town Chang Mai. Returning from a successful morning, me with a new pair of shorts down from 580 baht to 250 baht (£9 to £4) and a pair of sandals also beaten down to £4, we picked up the bloggers and headed off for something to eat and a possible Thai massage. Little did we know!! Ended up at the Food Market and Walking Street we stopped for the obligatory light lunch of something hot and spicy plus a nice cold beer. Feeling fat and full, we headed off for a soothing Thai massage - Sheila even talked the kids into having one. Oh! what fun!

Down we sat in four barber style chairs in an open area that quote "had air conditioning". All the Thai's in the surrounding market pulled their chairs closer to watch the fun. James and Sheila opted for feet and Sherie and I for the back. Off we went first 15 minutes were ok if a little painful, but when the masseur whacked me over the head, tried to pull my earlobes off and proceeded to pull all my fingers out of the sockets, I knew I had picked the wrong option. 30 minutes later and 80 bahts lighter (£1.20), having gone in with a bad back, I came back out with a bad back, headache, burning ears and dislocated fingers. Please do not try this at home!

Having had an afternoon nap to recover from the massage, we headed off for the evening, looking for a place recommended in the "Discovery Channel Guide"; we did not find it but ended up in a similar Northern Thai restaurant called "Just Khao Soy" where we were forced to wear aprons whilst eating our soup, noodles and drinking cocktails, (Note to self, must stop talking about food and drink) somebody had heard of my eating habits. A slow meander back, stopping for a cocktail or two we finally hit our beds and waited for the nightly disco to kick off. Sure enough 00.30hrs some demented DJ put his first record on. Eventually, sometime in the early hours, we drifted off to sleep.

Tony