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At the moment we are in Chiang Mai (north Thailand), where we have been for the last three days. It's nice here- even though it's the second largest city in Thailand it's quite compact and easy to get around. We hired some bikes yesterday and cycled round the city for pretty much the whole day. We have visited a couple of the Buddhist temples, been to the night market (as seen in the photo), and even went to the cinema. We both had craving for a bit of 'normality' so we went to see Sherlock Holmes. Apart from having to stand up before the film started to 'show our respect' and watch a slow motion reel of the King accompanied by dramatic music, we could have been back in the UK!
Before Chiang Mai we spent a couple of days in Bangkok, although we weren't overly impressed. The city was incredibly spread out and lacked the necessary means of public transport to easily get about (compared to other capital cities). There is a Metro and Skytrain system, however they only seem to service certain parts of the city and the stations are quite sporadic. Nevertheless we saw as much as we could using the Skytrain when we were able to and tuktuks the rest of the time. We went to to the huge weekend market and spent most of an afternoon browsing the 15000 stalls on offer. As you can imagine everything was very cheap and we ended up buying a couple of t-shirts, etc. each. I was very restrained given the amout of stuff there was to buy!
I hope everyone had a good New Year's Eve. Ours was quite quiet really, but we had a nice time nonetheless! We were staying in Koh Samui and had 'splashed out' for New Year and stayed in a small resort right on the beach. It had recently been renovated, complete with infinity pool overooking the sea, and as there were only six bungalows it was nice and peaceful. On NYE we went out for a meal and then went back to the resort to have a few drinks on the beach. Everyone else had gone over to Koh Phangan for the Full Moon Party so we had the entire place to ourselves. We sat on the beach and watched all the fireworks go off at midnight around the bay, and then we went for a 'New Year' swim in the pool! On New Year's Day we weren't feeling too hungover (!) so went walked to the Big Buddha temple that was nearby. For 50 baht (about 90p) you could write your name and a message on a tile that would be used to bulild the new temple roof, which we decided to do. After writing our message we realised that we only had a 100 baht note and as it was a donation we couldn't really ask for change! One of the monks happened to notice us putting the 100 baht into the donation box, and as a way of saying 'thank you' for this (albeit accidental!) donation, gave Andrew a multi-coloured necklace complete with gold medallion featuring a picture of the Buddha on it. Obviously not wanting to offend the monk, Andrew kept the necklace on whilst we visited the temple with the intention of taking it off once we had left. However, he then decided he quite liked it and has worn it ever since. This would be fine except Thai people think he's actually Buddhist- one man in Bangkok even stopped him in the street to give him directions to the nearest temple!
Last night we both had a massage- Chiang Mai is supposed to be the best place in Thailand for massages and there are lots of massage schools here. I had a foot massage, whilst Andrew opted for the traditional Thai massage (where they basically perform yogo ON you!) Andrew also had tried one of the fish spas, where you place your feet in a tank of water and these fish (known as 'Dr. Fish') come and nibble away your dead skin. It looks very strange, and according to Andrew 'feels really weird'. I didn't give it a go as I hate fish and the thought of them touching me freaks me out. I also have very ticklish feet so I probably would have reacted with a mixture of terrified and genuine laughter, which wouldn't have been appropriate given calm and tranquil atmosphere of the spa!
So we are now relaxed and ready for our six hour journey today. We are heading to Chiang Khong (further north) for one night before crossing the border into Laos. We are then taking the slow boat (two days with a stop-over) down the Mekong river to Luang Prebang. Hopefully my next update will be from there, but I won't make any promises!
Jess xxx
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