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Hello everyone,
A lot has happened since we left New Zealand over a month ago. Charlie and I spent a sweltering hot day cowering in the shade in Singapore before getting a flight to Bangkok the following day. This was instead of a 3 day train through Malaysia and up through southern Thailand and was such a good decision. We arrived in Bangkok for the Thai water festival 'Songkran' which was so much fun. The streets were packed with people and it was basically a massive water fight for 3 days, starting at 11am and finishing about 5am. We bumped into a load of friends from school and spent a lot of time with them which was nice. By the end of it we were quite relieved it was over as we were starting to develop trench foot and were a bit fed up with being constantly soaked. Sam joined us on the 18th April and it was great to see him. We had a great first night with him and went to a ping pong show (I'll spare you all the details) before going back to the hotel which his mum had kindly booked us all into for a night which was a real treat after slumming it in the Khao San road. Bangkok was manic and we had a great time there getting little sleep and partying hard. An Oundle friend of ours who lives out there took us out on some fantastic nights as well. We also stayed with some of Charlie's family friends, the Mackay's, who were very hospitable and friendly.
After a nightmare day with Vietnamese visas issues and flight issues (I entered Sam's passport details wrong) we left Bangkok on the morning of the 21st April for Chiang Mai, a cultural hub in Northern Thailand. We had a nightmare 21 hour journey as the train broke down. We spent a fun 4 days here got a lot done. We hired mopeds and had a great day charging around the jungle up to the top of a mountain where a sacred Buddhist temple is. Sam found himself and couldn't stop saying how beautiful it was. We also went elephant riding which was fun until the locals running it started trying to wipe elephant dung in our faces. Another highlight was when we did a Thai cooking course (see photo of us with our veg baskets!). It was full of humour and drama - Charlie nearly cut Sam's toe off when he dropped his butcher's knife an inch from his foot - just one of many funny moments. We went to a Thai boxing match here which was fun. First round was 8 year olds pummeling each other (Charlie and Sam found it sickening I found it quite amusing) then progressed to teenagers and then men. Betting was interesting as well. Sam and I won about 5 quid each on one match. Charlie had guessed correctly about every single bout and finally decided to put quite a lot of money (for Thailand) on the final one which he lost which made Sam and I laugh a lot. We left Chiang Mai on the 26th April for Laos.
Dom
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