Chiang Mai, Koh Samui and Paradise

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OK, so kate and i spent just under a week in chiang mai (thats the longest weve spent anywhere...) we did a Cookery Course... learnt to cook Chicken Fried rice, spring rolls, Banana Fritters and Red Curry. Sugar goes into everything... but it was a great day. we ate so much food!

http://www.cookinthai.com/webphoto.php
there are some photos of us on the above website, we went on the 13th June. as far as i know, they havnt been loaded yet.

we also did a one day trek... which involved Elephant riding (an experience certainly... not sure if i will ever do that again... it was very uncomfortable and we were both more than happy to get off at the end!), Bamboo Rafting - which was awesome! so much better than whitewater rafting. and we did it in a monsoon shower... was refreshing to say the least! we also visited a couple of hill tribes, teh Hmong tribe and the Karen Hill tribe. we went for one day as the trek went south... and theres less risk of malaria in the south!!! despite teh more interesting hill tribes being in the north.

kate and i then caught two night trains in a row (yes, DEATHLY) to get to Koh Samui. and we spent a day in teh luxury that is the Bangkok siam Paragon Centre. aircon, foodcourt and 100000s of shops. i put exhaustion, sweat and being generally grouchy and disgusting down to the fact that when we finally got to Koh Samui, i was too tired to think about eating in a thai restaurant (choosing food can be very taxing... letalone choosing somewhere to eat). kate and i had a little tiff about eating (again, both of us were exhausted and starving) so we went our seperate ways for a couple of hours. i disappeared to McDonalds. (again a BAD DECISION). and had a burger. it was the only thing i ate all that day... and the next day...

FOOD POISONING. i was so ill. so so sos so so so so so so so ill. kate was a gem tho. she ended up dragging me to the doctor who injected me with something and some fluids just so i could keep things down and actually combat the severe dehydration. and enough drugs to kill me. so it was all good. apart from the fact that we had to pass on going to Koh Pha Ngan because i was that ill. so we stayed on Samui for 4 nights, on the beach... which was pretty good... then caught a boat to Surat Thani... where we were thrown on a campervan bus thing and told that it was going to Krabi... we had no choice but to go along with it!!! there were points where we wondered...

spent a Night in Krabi then went to Koh Phi Phi. which was expensive and very remote. but it was PARADISE. beautiful. words cant describe. i shall have to show the photos. perhaps ill try and upload them on here at some point....

(kates getting very excited by a trashy magazing that is yesterdays issue... which is exciting... we normally have ones which are 2-3months out of date!!!)

anyway. we did a snorkelling and kayaking trip around phiphi which included a trip to the beach where they filmed 'the beach'. which was very touristy. and we are now back in bangkok... off to hongkong in 2 days ... :S

sorry for rushed entry... am running out of time very swiftly and have so much to write!!! i havnt done phiphi justice...

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