Rain....rain....rain!

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We woke up this morning, or should I say afternoon, (for some reason we are sleeping SO much and are still so tired during the day...it couldn't still be jet lag? Or maybe its just the heat...) But anyways, luckily this morning I did not wake up with a further 7 mosquito bites all over my legs! Once we got sorted there is a Thai massage place right outside our hostel. We decided to go in to have a relaxing start to the day. We weer brought into a tiny, dark room with music in the background and asked to put on the traditional Thai clothes. Oh god, Conor and I had the trousers on back to front and didn't know how to Thai them, when the Thai women came back in the basically had to re-dress us!

We lay down on the bed type things and they began. It was so relaxing, for me I tend to be the more sensitive one and sometimes massages acn hurt. For the majority it was so calming and then at other times the power in her fingers and feet kind of made me tense up. With the woman having to ask me a few times to relax! They bend you and stretch you in all kinds of ways, working from your legs up to your arms, to your back and then finally on your head and face. Before starting with your head they rub tea-tree oil on their hands and gently hold it above your nose and mouth. I would definitely recommend having one done and for only 200 Baht for an hour and a half it is really good value!

We had a quiet lunch, had a few games of pool and headed back to the hostel to get ready for the Sunday market...and then, the heavens opened! It rained and rained and rained! We contemplated just chilling out and not going out in the rain and then it dawned on us that we were going to have to leave anyways to go out for the night safari, so we put on our raincoats and trekked on! The rain, like it has done on previous nights, did not stop. It was still very humid and the markets didn't have the same atmosphere in the rain. We also came to the conclusion that once you have seen one market, you've pretty much seen them all. Although the Sunday market in Chiang Mai did have a lot more traditional Thai carved ornaments.

After the market and a HOT cup of coffee this time instead of the nice iced ones which helps in the heat we made our way to the night bazaar to get collected for the night safari. And WOW what a night safari it was! You arrive through these gates, very dark but the walls are lit up beautifully. You have two different journeys to go on, ''Prowling Predators'' and ''Savanna Safari'', you are placed on these tram like vehicles, with no sides on them and brought round to see all of the animals. You get to see everything from wild boar, to lions, tigers, zebras, hyenas, elephants and giraffe. Some of the deer and wild boar come right up to the side of the carriage. It is awesome to see, we didn't however get any good photographs as you weren't allowed to use flash incase this annoyed or disturbed the animals. It was pitch black until the driver or the tour guide put on the flash lights. At some cases we couldn't drive any further as the deer and boars were on the road. There was a lot of anger from the Thai people when the park was started as to the welfare of the animals and to be honest when we left it was sad to think that they are locked up, not necessarily in a cage but to some extent they cannot walk about freely. It has however 7 Bengal tigers (3 of which had been born in the safari park), which taking into consideration there are only 17 in Thailand and 300 left in the world, is them doing their good deed! I suppose it just depends what your thoughts are on animal rights!

We ended the lovely evening with a meal in a wee restaurant that as we walked past we had noticed it was recommended by the lonely planet. We decided to give it a go and sure enough, it was great! Traditional Thai food that was cheap as chips! Great end to a great day!

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