The Thai experience!

Hello there folks so we arrived safe and well in Bangkok yesterday morning and jumped straight onto another flight to Chaing Mai in the north of Thailand. We had no accommodation sorted but thanks to the trusty Lonely Planet we managed to secure a private room at Safe House guesthose for just 3 pounds per night. It could do with a lick of paint but it's clean and we have our own bathroom with hot shower so you can't ask for more than that! After briefly settling in we had lunch which cost us approx 50p each - how much are we loving Thailand!

After getting the important things sorted out we set about our exploration of this city. Temples galore here so we thought we'd better check out a few. We quickly chartered our own tuk-tuk which is where we met Tommy the tuk-tuk driver (see picture) and with some negotiation (im really not the best at this bartering business!) we managed to secure a deal. Basically Tommy took us about the place for about 2.5hours and it cost us about 3pounds!

On our travels we went to a temple in a little forest. Around the forest there were lots of littke placards nailed to trees with Buddhist proverbs written on them like the one in the picture! Some very wise words indeed! I know the boys in WPC love their proverbs so i thought i'd include a few for you to add to your already abundant collection:

• One who can only hear but does not understand is as good as deaf.
• He who borrows on interest pays back in tears
• To shoulder sufferings a fool submits himself to the weight of sufferings at the same place. He is seated until his legs become atrophied. He is thus overloaded all his life being always enslaved by sensual delights. (rolls of the tongue doesn't it!)
• Tomorrow i shall do good! This is a fool's word, even today is a bit too late. A wise man did good yesterday.

I hope you benefited much from that! We managed to book ourselves a 3 day trek which will be Fri-Sun. This was our main reason for coming to Chaing Mai and I'm really excited because the trek package includes staying with remote indigenous tribes, elephant back riding and white-water rafting!

Last night we found the markets where we browsed counterfeit goods at ridiculously low prices, did some bartering and came away with a few bargains! Then we went for food. Both of us opted for the spicy Thai salad to start with asking for it to be mildly spicy. Well I'm not joking folks but ive never had my mouth burn from a salad before but i'll not forget it in a hurry! I started to get the sweats down my back, my lips were on fire and no amount of liquids seem to appease it! Thankfully i'd opted for a non-spicy main course which quickly brought my taste-buds back to something closer to normal!

All is good on the travelling front. So far we are lovin Thailand!