Hi all!

Firstly would like to say that we have only just noticed that you are leaving comments below each blog as well as the message board and they really made us smile so keep them coming!

Since we last wrote we are now in Chiang Mai. We left Ayutthaya Wednesday night on an overnight train but not before Katherine had her second bum injection and she is now starting to get better! The foot has gone done a bit so hopefully no more bum injections will be needed.

The overnight train was a bit of an experience. Somehoe Katherine managed to snag the lower (and bigger and darker) bunk and I ended up on the top bunk. I'm not sure who they design the 'ladders' for but I can only imagine they're for infants - ABSOLUTELY TINY! Once I was in I was in and I didn't come out till morning! Neither of us slept particularly well as it was quite rickety and every now and again the train would make a horrible groaning noise and start rocking backward and forwards. Luckily I had straps on my bunk to stop me falling out. I will make Katherine experience this joy on the way back!
We had an interesting breakfast on the train the following morning - we were given a menu to choose from so we both went for the 'Chocolate Cookies' option. Was very nice but I'm not sure it counts towards our five a day? Luckily they gave us a banana too. Katherine is coping without British tea as there is quite a lot of Thai tea around which isn't half bad - bit of a strange flavour when they put condensed milk in it though.

We were too exhausted to do much in the day so in the evening we visited the Night Market. After this we braved the streets of Chiang Mai for a well earned Chang (Thai beer) but we can't seem to find out where the other backpackers are! Whilst nowhere near as warm as Ayutthaya and Bangkok were at night I'm sure it's positively tropical compared to England in January (haha)

Today we walked around Chiang Mai a bit and visited some more temples. We must confess that we did have a McDonalds for lunch but before you judge us too harshly it's only fair that you know that we had just walked past a restaurant serving 'fried frog with basil.' We have been very brave trying all the Thai food but there are only so many noodles you can eat and I'm not sure we're ready for friend frog quite yet - basil or not.
After lunch we visited Wat Phra Singh and managed to hire a guide somewhat more succesfully than in Bangkok and we visited some really lovely temples just outside of Chiang Mai. However we are now both getting Wat-fatigue and each temple is starting to look like the last! After the temples our guide (called Long) took us to a Thai Silk Village which was really interesting. We saw all the icky silk worms and how they make the clothes on the looms (did you know one cocoon of a silk worm produces 500metres of silk thread? neither did we.) We also visited a jewelery making factory where I was convinced to buy a lovely Jade pendant (because jade is lucky in Thailand) which still cost me less than 2pounds!
On our way around today we also discovered that Chiang Mai has a radio station called T.I.T.S. (106.5fm) Now we're not sure what this stanbds for but it does make us laugh seeing big signs for T.I.T.S around town.
We are now back at the hostel and are uploading some pictures (so check out facebook).

As for our future plans we are staying in Chiang Mai probably until next week. We are booked into another hostel closer to the centre of town from tomorrow for 2 nights and hope to do some trekking on Monday depending on how Kat's foot is. We also want to see some elephants and hopefully get lifted up by them which we should be able to do as part of our trek which we are going to try and book tomorrow.

We'll be in touch soon, love to you all, don't forget to check out the pictures

Sarah & Kat xx