Getting there!

At the moment Kate and I are in the North of Thailand in Chiang Mai which is pretty much the cultural centre of Thailand. I'll tell you more about that later but first i want to fill you in on what has been going on up till now.

Finally the time had come for Kate and I to set off on our 5 week trip to Thailand. Feeling nervous, excited and rather sore- due to a last minute bikini wax- we bid an emotional farewell to our friends and boarded the train from Preston to London Euston. After getting comfortable we realised that unfortunately we had got on the wrong train, but luckily it was not too late to make a quick dash across the station to hop on the right one. After that the journey to Heathrow was much easier than anticipated due in large part to Emma Wild's good knowledge (and map) or the London Underground. We'd met her and Lois on the train as they were off to Australia for summer bearing rucksacks considerably heavier than ours!

We travelled in style with Kingfisher airlines as much as everyone tried to tell us they had never heard of it, it was one of the best flights I've ever had!

We arrived in Bangkok simply hoping we would be able to find a place to sleep for the night. However, we ended up getting much more than that. Our first night in Bangkok was simply amazing. After a quick shower and change we headed out onto the backpacker's paradise... Khao San Road! The city was absolutely heaving and we headed up to a rooftop bar where a musician was playing lots of classics accompanied by an acoustic guitar. A few minutes after we arrived a huge thunderstorm started up but this certaily didn't stop the party, in fact it seemed to have the opposite effect! Everyone was in such high spirits and the atmosphere was incredible! Our beverage of choice was the local Chang beer which turned out to be pretty good, we danced with lady boy's (not intentionally) and got many offers to go see an infamous ping-pong show, all of which we politely refused. We crashed out about 2am but not after a late night swim in our rooftop pool with a few others staying in our hotel.

The next day we woke up late having missed breakfast which we were both very disappointed about as we had paid 850 Baht for our room (we realise we got absolutely ripped off and have been much wiser in ouraccomodation choices since then). However it didn't dampen our spirits and we once again headed out into the hustle and bustle of Khao San Road. There are market stalls lining the streets all selling knock off goods, it took all our self restraint not to buy everything we saw and to save the shopping till the end of the trip. After a tiring day we booked an overnight bus to Chiang Mai and arrived early morning.