It's all about Ch(i)ang

I felt like delaying coming back into Thailand for as long as possible. Because it meant we were leaving my favourite favourite Laos and also our time in Asia was drawing to an end. So before crossing the land border we stopped for coffee and pondered leaving Laos until we could put it off no more. The border was just a short long tail boat across the river it was very straight forward and an organised and civil welcome back to Changland.

After a local bus ride (three hours on what we've come to know as a chicken bus) we arrived in Chiang Rai. It was actually quite overwhelming to be back in a busy, noisy, developed city after the sedateness of Laos. But there were perks too, as we quickly stocked up on recognisable brands in the local Boots and had a lovely Chang beer!

There is lots to see and do in and around Chiang Rai, temples, trekking and hill tribes, to name a few. However, our enthusiasm for such activities was running low so instead we made the most of being back in civilisation and ate steamed buns, pizzas and shopped.

The next day we moved on to the third Chiang in this blog, the famous Chiang Mai. Even bigger than its neighbour, with more temples and day trips on offer this place is flourishing with tourists. We stayed at the wonderful Galare Guest house on the river, I'm mentioning this because they have the best room keys we've seen, keys attached to fist sized wooden elephants, love it.

We had so far held out on doing any cooking stuff until we reached this cookery class capital. So on our second day we were enrolled at the famous Chiang Mai Thai Cooking School. Our day included vegetable carving, making six dishes, including red curry, Thai soup and my bestest mango with sticky rice. All of these we also had to eat, so you can imagine how full we felt by the end of the day. It was really fun and the recipes were relatively straight forward, though you'll have to let us know how well we were taught after we've had you around for a dinner to try them (Dans cooking).

After gorging ourselves on Thai food we needed to get some clothes with bigger waist bands. Luckily though we were in market central, in fact Chiang Mai has the biggest market upon market full of tourist tat I think we've seen.

To balance out our spending, next we immersed our selves in a local temple. First we took part in 'monk chat' where you sit with the resident monks and talk about what you like. Actually I think you're supposed to discuss Buddhism but I found out lots of other interesting things about a day in the life of a monk. After that we joined in with the meditation class. Our teacher hailed from India and told us about his beliefs in mediation and it's benefits. Then we sat in silence (or actually mediated - depends who you ask) for at least 10 minutes, until our legs grew stiff and we needed to wriggle around!?! After this we tried 'walking meditation' which was easier on the legs, but I think harder on the mind. We practised various positions a little more and heard some more epiphanies from our meditation master before returning to the real world.

If you've visited Chiang Mai already and you're reading this, you are probably expecting trekking, elephants or hill tribes to feature next in our list of activities (as these are all popular trips from here). Alas we've put these types of adventures on hold until we get to our next destination Pai (a little more North and closer to Burma). Where we hope the excursions will be more adventurous, eco-conscious and cheaper.

And so its Saturday today and off we go to Pai, but don't fear we'll be make in Chiang Mai again in a few days to begin our journey back to Bangkok.