Another day, another country!
8/4
Back on a plane today for an hour anyway! Chiang Mai is so different to everything we left behind in Laos. There are 7/11's everywhere, Starbucks, McDonalds, Burger King is here and they even have Boots and Tesco! Got a guesthouse just outside the main city wall. Wandered around and (wrongly) decided to have an ice cream as I was hungry and figured that was better than a solid meal. Bad idea that turned out to be and you guessed it I was sick again. Turns out you shouldn't eat dairy when you have an upset stomach, won't make that mistake again The pharmacist at Boots gave me some anti-nausea pills and told me to stay hydrated. Thank god for Ell being there to go and sort out getting me the pills and some energy drinks. Thank you!
9/4
Today I stayed in the room all day and slept and read my book. Felt hungry in the afternoon so ventured out for a McDonalds, probably not the best food idea but I wanted a cheeseburger! Managed to not be sick for 24 hours, hopefully the road to recovery.
10/4
Today I spent the day resting again, still had no energy. Had some breakfast and went back to bed. Will be nice when I can start eating again and having some energy.
11/4
Today we wandered around the city and went to Chiang Mai Arts and Culture Museum. It was really hot today. Went to a bar to watch the Sunderland v Man U game and left after the first half as the beer was really expensive! Had a Subway for dinner, yum sliced chicken and ham. Got soaked on the way by some people chucking buckets of water, pre Thai New Year celebrations, puts our New Year to shame!
12/4
Got up and went to see if we could get on Jungle Flight or Flight of the Gibbon (zip wire things). Success, pick up at 1pm. It was fun on zip wires going from platform to platform, until we found out that there were 3 "abseils" where they just lower you down from the top of a tree to the platform underneath. The first was 5m, ok fair enough until the guide let me go really quickly and I let out an almighty scream. The second was a 16m, and I thought the first scream was loud this one was on another level! The guides are so mean! Even the guys at the bottom said how quick the guide let me go. The last one was a whooping 35m drop, *#^* oh my god and they said that there wasn't another way down. Thank god that this time they went slowly and let me down gently all the way. The 2 other girls started crying at the top. On the zip wires we went across sometimes on our own, as doubles or at one point, a guide attached himself to me and another girl and the three of us went across the biggest zip wire in Thailand (120m) together. It was a really fun trip apart from tehe "abseils." Spoke to my parents on the phone in the evening, was really nice to hear their voices.
13/4
Today was the last day of the Tahi Year. To celebrate they sprinkle water over Buddha images and then everyone just thorws water over each other. Whole new meaning to water fight. Go on Youtube and search for Songkran and you will see what I mean, it was completely insane. All down the main street people had lined the pavements to soak passersby and vehicles alike. Got drenched in every sense of the word, by buckets, supersoakers and jets of water. Got ourselves some buckets and joined in the mayhem! All the businesses down the streets had big bins of water outside to use as refills or there was the moat, the buckets handily came with string attached so that you could throw it in the moat to fill it up and get it back out. Awesome fun day!
14/4
Went on a Thai cooking class today. Was fun. Learnt how to cook, Thai green curry, coconut milk soup with chicken, noodles and stir fry chicken with cashew nuts. To start the day, the chef took us to the market to buy the ingredients and to give us tips. When cooking the stir fry dish, he put lots of oil and water in our woks and made us start a fire in teh woks. Was fun until mine went on for longer than everyone else's and I wondered if it was ever going to stop! Got really hot with the flames. On the way back, got soaked again as the New Year's celebrations were still going on and the roads were shut to cars so we had to walk back to the guesthouse unarmed!
Probably heading for Bangkok tomorrow, going to do a get in and out as quickly as possible thing because of the situation there at the moment.
Will then head down south to the sun/islands
xx
