Olivers Travels A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step...

30^th November 2007: - We woke to the sound of cockerels & fighting dogs, nothing new there then!  Have our breakfast of Jam & bread that we purchased with the last of our Kip & then head for our lift to the small long boat that takes us to the Thai immigration office.  Again this border crossing was extremely efficient; we only had to contend with the Thai / Laos fashion of queuing, which is basically pushing each other until you get to the front of the queue.  Which works well when you have a big pack on you back to swing around, hehe.  We then had a really minibus journey to Chiang Mai, stopping off @ a cashew factory along the way.  As if Drew needed an invitation, he was straight in there & purchased a bag, they were extremely fresh.  W arrived @ our destination in Chiang Mai @ about 15.00 & straight away headed out to get our bearings.  We ended up walking along the night market with plenty of stalls selling a lot of interesting things at ridiculously cheap prices.  Object of this experience is to see how much you can barter the traders down to; you can get a bit carried away though a bracelet nearly cost us 25p, hilar.  After browsing for a while we walked off of the street to the under cover market of Kalare to have a couple of beers & listen to a live band.  I have no doubt we will be heading back here soon, as they have a fab food court.

1^st December 2007: - We had so much planned for today, but we unfortunately got a bit sidetracked with looking for hotel accommodation for our next port of call in Krabi.  We of course had no luck, so called it s day @ about 13.00, when our stomachs started to rumble.  As we were walking out of the guesthouse, we spotted 2 little fur balls.  They were the cutest little puppies you have ever seen, they fitted in the palm of your hands (will try to put a pic on) Jess you would have adored them!  Our task this pm was to book our train tickets to Bangkok & this time we succeeded, yeah!  So on the 5^th December we will be arriving into the hustle & bustle of Bangkok.  Chiang Mai is said to be the second largest city in Thailand & it is pretty gentle.  Ok you still have all the vehicles but you can get lost in the little Sois (roads) amongst quiet tranquil surroundings.  We just walked & explored today, best way to get to know a place.

2^nd December 2007: - Still no luck with a place to stay in Krabi, boo.  Starting to wonder if there is anything available!  Today we enrolled on a Thai cookery class & it was fantastic.  Our menu for the day was the following: - Chicken with Cashew (Drew’s fav), Spicy seafood soup, Egg & chicken soy noodles, Penang curry & for dessert Mango with sticky rice.  For these dishes we helped prep all of our ingredients & then went into the kitchen to cook.  All of the different smells, tastes & textures were fully appreciated.  I don’t think we have ever tried such fresh produce.  Our Teacher was very informative & had very encouraging words for all of us especially Drew & his artistic flare with the vegetable decorations.  Seeing as we sampled all that we cooked we both left feeling very full & totally up for making Thai food when we get back home.  We even have a cookery book.

3^rd December 2007: - Yet again we tried to sort our somewhere to stay for our little break, we think we may have found somewhere on the Island of Koh Lanta, will let you know once it is confirmed.  Today we headed out to take in the sites of the numerous Wats around Chiang Mai, unfortunately we only made a couple & was forced into a bar due to the searing heat of the sun, Wat a shame!  For4 the rest of the pm we chilled out & took a little siesta back @ the room.  We were thinking about taking a dip, however recently the swimming pool has taken on an interesting shade of green!  This evening we decided to treat ourselves & go to the Good View bar & restaurant where they have liver music every night.  Food was ok but for the price you would expect it to be a tad bit better (not a patch on our cooking yesterday) Music was nice & mellow & created a good atmosphere.

4^th December 2007: - Well it looks like we will spend 9 days on the Island of Koh Lanta; I for one can not wait to get down there & just stay still for a period of time, yeah.  Will email you all the details as I think communication on the island may be a bit of a prob.  Spent most of the morning walking to a Tesco store located just outside the town centre.  We needed to stock up on some toiletry essentials & though the walk would do us good after the huge breakfast we had yet again from the Art Cafe.  After our hike we spent the rest of the pm reading & catching up on our journals before we headed out to the night market again.  Tonight we had the delight of watching some traditional Thai dancing on a very well decorated stage.  The dancers moved so slowly but the effort put into each move looked very intense.  You see celebrations are getting started for the Kings 80^th Birthday tomorrow; it also happens to be Fathers day & a national holiday.  Must tell you about our dinner tonight, I know I go on about food a bit, but the Prawns we had tonight were sooooo good.  We actually saw them being plucked out of the tank for us, so they were very fresh.  A little seasoning of pepper & garlic & they were to die for.