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Kelly & Mac in Asia :)
Hey petals!
Arrived five days ago following a nightmare 12 hour bus journey from Bangkok. We set off from our Guesthouse in good time to catch our bus, or so we thought! Spent a mad hour and a half sitting almost stationary in a Tuk tuk during rush hour. You have seen nothing like it! The pollution has probably taken years off our lives!
We paid a little extra for an aircon VIP bus, but as we were so late we had to settle for second best. A wheezy old thing with no leg room and a manky toilet. Thai busses have 'hostesses' who serve free water and slices of jam and bread...shame ours was the most miserable girl. Maybe her polyester uniform was itchy?
Poor Mac was sat infront of Thailands tallest man, so was unable to recline his seat to sleep. He was in a bit of a fettle for the first few hours and even the prospect of a sleeping tablet didn't cheer him up! At least we had a film to watch...with a soundtrack that changed from English to German and finally to Thai!
Arrived in Chiang Mai two hours ahead of time, but we were still able to check into our posh Hotel. It only cost us about ten pounds per night, and was a nice slice of luxury for two nights! Spent our first day lounging by the pool and sipping bannana shakes...lovely!
Its quite chilled out here, lots of bookshops to browse and some amazing coffee. We had a browse around a night market and have shipped some trinkets home to remind us of our trip.
Monday was a National holiday: Buddha Day. Thai families gather together during the day to eat, and at night they visit their local temple to pay their respects to Buddha and secure good luck and prosperity for the forthcoming year. People here are very friendly and always accepting of Farang (thats us!) Were were able to join in with the celebrations and were made to feel very welcome.
Flower sellers set up stalls outside of the Wat and charge 10 baht for a small offering to Buddha. We each bought some flowers, a candle and three sticks of incense wrapped in a leaf. You then walk three times around the Wat before placing your offering on the ground outside. We decided not to go into the Wat as we were unsure of protocol and wouldn't want to offend anyone by doing the wrong thing. It was an amazing experience!
Yesterday we went white water rafting. A short drive along the expressway toward the mountains was followed by a 10k off road lurch to the camp. We were split into two groups of four and given a short safety demonstration before heading onto the water to practise.
Michael and I were stuck with an Ex pat German and his teent tiny Thai girlfriend (who was suitably dressed in pink sparkly hotpants) She was rubbish! Her paddling was even weaker than mine and she kept waving it about in the air, narrowly missing my head several times!
The rapids were at level four (the highest is six and comes during the monsoon season) so we were looking forward to the ride! Michael and I were on the left side of the raft, paddling for all we are worth...because the other couple were a bit pants, we kept hitting the rapids left side on. This caused us to almost tip over, dumping me ar*e over tit into the rapid! I was quickly rescued after swallowing half a pint of river water :)
We are aching allover today, so going to have a quiet one before we head to Laos on a two day slowboat tomorrow.
Big love petals K&M x
ps: Hello to Dee & my American rellys x
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