Ah I love Chiang Mai, it feels like I've been here forever even though it's only been... 4 days?! There's so much to do here I keep adding days, sorry south islands, you can wait.

Soo I got here with the night train which had a really comfy bed so I fel asleep by 7pm, woke up at 2am and couldn't go back to sleep till about 6am, just lying in my little yellow curtained cubicle listening to the train, felt like I was going a bit mad. But eventually got there a few hours late and made it to SpicyThai Backpackers. It's an awesome little place but a big group of 12 Americans had just arrived so it was a bit mad and I ran away into town to find some internet and do some shopping. After much wandering around and getting lost (my favourite pasttime) it started to rain, so I took shelter in this covered food shed where a group of English people laughed at me for looking like a drowned rat. Then the storm really kicked in with street rivers and everything so they were stranded with me. Best way to make friends, make it so they can't escape! So I had dinner with them there and they invited me back to their hostel later on to play uno; there's an alcohol ban on, there's nothing else to do! I wandered off to find the night market, which I thought I did but it turns out that wasn't it, which became a bit of a theme. Got back to SpicyThai which was now dead so I decided to take up the uno offer, which proved a bit tricky seeing as their hotel was hidden down a really dark and spooky alley which nobody had heard of. Anyway we chilled out there for a bit, met some d*** who was showing off about robbing everyone in Australia, and heard some very detailed stories of people pulling in Bangkok and how the guy in the room next to them accidentally bought home a ladyboy then beat her up when he found out. Crazy stuff.

Next day I'd booked onto a cookery course with Siam Rice cookery school, where I learned how to make 7 different thai dishes from spring rolls to red thai curry... and then ate it all. I obviously took twice as long as everyone to chop things! I am quite the Thai chef though, and made a rather nice flower out of a carrot. It's a wonder Thai people are so tiny, they are CONSTANTLY eating and put so much sugar in everything (3 spoonfulls in a SALAD), I was a bit worried for the diabetic woman with us. But oh well it was delicious. In the evening I went to the Sunday market with Ed from SpicyThai who's actually getting paid to blog about travelling... he better say nice things about me! We ended up at the actual night market this time but were looking for the Sunday market, there are too many markets. Bought some Thai tshirts with english writing that made no sense, which I might find less funny when it comes to wearing them but nevermind!

Noom, the owner of SpicyThai arranged a trip for the next day to go to the temple at the top of the hill, Doi Sutthep. This turned out to be a 7 hour trek through the jungle... nobody told me this! But despite my hate of hills it was an awesome day with lots of waterfalls and only a tiny portion that made me want to curl up in a ball and refuse to move. It started hailing when we got to the temple... yeah, HAILING in the hottest month of the year in Thailand! It was freezing and my shoes (left ouside) got filled with water, but it meant we had an unobstructed view of the pagoda so that was ok! Took a songthaew (truck thing) down thank god. For dinner the whole hostel went for a thai BBQ which was in this giant shed full of tables, a band, and tables and tables of food, some cooked and some raw. You had a little stove on the tables and I was lucky enough to be sat next to a pro chef who provided me with lots of perfectly cooked shrimp. It was all you can eat, so more pigging out for me, good times. There's a crazy ginger guy at the hostel who calls me ginger for some reason and is pretty much hilarious, he's travelled 30 countries and been on loads of english gameshows - some people's lives are too exciting. He randomly burst into 'A whole new world' at some point, seranading some bemused thai people next to us and kickstarting a disney medley singalong for out whole table, harmonies and all. Needless to say, I had my emotional singing face on. After that we tried to have a night out but alcohol's been banned for the last few nights due to elections and the cremation of a cousin of the royal family (pretty big deal here) so we could only find a place in the red light district which was interesting... We then moved on to some rooftop bar where I got into a bit of an argument with a Swedish guy about bikes and that was that.

Jesus Christ this is long. Ok so yesterday was the caving which I'd booked as a joint package with ziplining and a homestay. IT WAS AMAZING. The caves were massive, each cavern could fit in a cathedral. There was a 50m abseil into the darkness where we wandered around for hours with headtorches, admiring the stalagtites and the sparkly white calcite formations which looked like snow. There were tiny white millipedes and loads of bats, and I took about a million photos of rocks. I was the only non caver there, so the two guides and an American woman who had been caving for 30 years had lots of lengthy debates about the composition of some yellow powder, and I got to pretend I was a real cave explorer. We eventually climbed back up the 50m rope (it's hot here, it was knackering) and I emerged dripping with sweat and with bat poop smeared all over my face, ready to make a wonderfull first impression for my Thai homestay. Thai people are really into cleanliness, I think she flinched a bit when she saw me.

The house was a typical Thai home with photos everywhere, portraits of the royal family and lots of really brightly coloured cushions and blankets with cartoon cats and pandas on them, it was lovely. Unfortunalely the woman spoke as much english as I speak of thai, so I sat there smilling manically at everyone for a bit before I had a nice healthy (for a change) dinner, followed by a hour long full body massage which was actually desperately needed, caving hurts! The lady bought over her kids during the massage and we all had a laugh about how the cute little baby climbed all over me, so we managed to have a bit of bonding anyway, even if I didn't understand a word of it! Was in bed by 9pm and had the best night's sleep so far, before waking up at 6:30am when it seemed all the dogs, kids and motorbikes all started screaming at the same time. Waved goodbye to the family and was driven to the ziplining with Flight of the Gibbon.

This was good fun, there were loads of ziplines... some 800m long, some in the superman position and some where I was attached to an American girl called Coralee who was also doing the homestay but in a different house. We had a really good lunch then visited a waterfall where I had a nice wade and me and Coralee climbed to the top pool and hung from some vines before being taken back to Chaing Mai. Got my stuff from SpicyThai and moved on to my new hostel called A Little Bird. I loved Spicy but they're booked up for the water festival, will probably head back up there for it though. This one's a lot closer to town though so I'll give it a chance.

Yeah so that's that. I realise nobody's ever gonna read all that but I have the afternoon off and fancied a ramble. I do miss talking to people I know, meeting people's been really easy so far, but it's all a bit fleeting and you only reach as far as covering people's jobs and their travel plans before they're gone. Everyone's really friendly though, apart from this one girl in my dorm who quite literally sat it bed, hidden behind towels on her laptop for three days and was rude to everyone, didn't even get a hi out of her. I finally met a nice person in my dorm after two days, this American girl called Amanda who's an actress (seriously, my life is so boring) which was a bit of a relief from the tension in the room! But yeah, all good times so far and I need to get off this computed before someone shouts at me! Byeeee x