Overlook on Chiang Mai

We are now sat in "The Coffee Bean", a cafe in Kuala Lumpur LCCT airport.
It has some free internet access that likes to cut off but it gives me an opportunity to finally update the blog.

We have now spent our 6 nights in Chiang Mai and are on our way to Perth in Australia.
Chiang Mai has been fantastic, we have had a great balance of relaxing in our hotel and also going out to explore Chiang Mai and the activities that we took part in.

The last blog post from Chiang mai was on our first full day, the first impression we received was great, and this impression stuck with us as it was definately the best place out of all the places we have stayed at.

There was so much to see, so much to do and it was so cheap in relation to the rest of thailand/Malaysia that we visited.
I got my hair shaved for 90 baht, which is around 1 pounds 70. Cheap as chips, well you can't get chips over here.. but if you could they would probably be the cheapest chips in the world. Also the worst, as they don't cook western food very well. I actually had chips here, and they were overcooked and not as good as the home made ones :)
Later on, Jamie got his hair shaved too, continuing the short hair cut which I am going to stick with, as its easy to manage and doesn't require as much shampoo which is too expensive over here.
Ok, I appear to be waffling on, as per usual :D
On our second full day in Chiang mai we did an activity which we had booked the previous day. The activity was called ATV (Not American Television which I first thought it was when looking at the brochure, but All Terrain Vehicle), which was a quadbiking trek. Basically, we got picked up from our hotel by a mini-bus which had other people on it who were also taking part in the trip. We were then taken to a quadbiking centre where we got lessons on how to work the quadbikes, got given the safety equipment and were then taken in convoy by the Thai Quadbike man, and headed for the mountains, which were 1100 metres high. Which gave us a fantastic view and we drove them through local villages which was great to see, as we saw alot of poverty. The trip was fun, it was a 42km (25 mile) quadbike journey taking around 3-4 hours, but was definately worth doing as it was a highlight of our whole trip and was an exciting day.
After taking part in this activity we couldn't wait to book another trek.
We then later that night booked a Thai cooking course for the next day.
The Thai cooking course was fantastic! We booked it for the evening so we could eat the Thai food we cooked for our tea. We were the only 3 people on the course. The people who were also booked to do it on that day obviously found out that we were going so they cancelled, which was a good choice.  The Thai Lady taking the course was called Meow, which was fun and when teaching us how to cook Thai food she spoke to us as if there was a huge group which was funny, even though there was only three of us there.
When cooking the main course, Chicken Curry with cashew nuts we even created a MasterChef style flame from the frying pan, making the experience even more enjoyable.
It was a five course dinner, which was great to cook and we were there for around 3 hours. We had aprons at the ready, Ben in Pink, Jamie in Blue and I was also in a beautiful Pink coloured apron.
That night we got back to our hotel around half 9 and went out to watch some Thai boxing in a square near some of the local bars. The boxing was fantastic, Thai boxing is kickboxing and there was quite a crowd. We got some good seats, I got a Chang Beer, Ben and Jamie got a cocktail and we sat and watched a few fights whilst really enjoying the experience.
The next day was a more relaxing day, we had a lie in which was nice and then went out to visit some of the traditional Thai temples in Chiang Mai. A man outside our hotel in a Thai “Tuk-tuk” offered to take us to the temples, and wait for us at each one. The price was 100 baht each (just short of two pounds) which was relatively cheap as we then had transport to take us to all the temples booked and meant that visiting the temples was possible in only a couple of hours rather than taking longer if we had to sort out transport to and from each temple.
The day after (yesterday) we booked another activity day. This one was the one we were most excited for. It was a one day adventure tour which consisted of the pickup and drop off to our hotel, Elephant trekking, a waterfall walk, white water rafting and bamboo rafting.
We were supposed to be picked up at 8:15am, so we got ourselves up at 7am, went down to breakfast got ready and waited outside to be picked up. The trip cost 700 baht (14 pounds each) and we had put down a deposit of 300 baht each. We had never had any trouble waiting for pick up for any previous activities as they all seem to be pretty much on time. We waited and waited, made a few calls (which were not answered) to the tour agency and the pickup was nowhere to be seen. After an hour, we realized that they weren’t coming so we decided to walk to see the lady who we booked it with to see what was going on. The lady had mistakenly booked us in for the previous day, however put the 20th onto our deposit receipt, she then apologized and organized for us transport to catch up to the group who luckily had only visited the “Orchard farm” (the part we weren’t too fussed about visiting) and we then headed to the elephant trekking place where we were going to go on the elephants.
We got to the elephant trekking place, had a water and then were told we were going to firstly do the waterfall walk instead and do the elephant trekking later. It worked out better, as the three best activities were left until last.
We had a half an hour walk to the waterfall, which was very similar to the Ingleton waterfall walk in North Yorkshire, the waterfall was really nice, and had a good plunge pool to have a quick dip. After our refreshing, waterfall bathe we then received our lunch, which was noodles in leaf wrapped packaging. It was tasty, I couldn’t eat using chop sticks but it was still yummy.

The next part of the activity was elephant trekking, which was incredible. It was great to see the Elephants up close, feed them bananas and ride them.
Due to the fact we weren’t officially booked for the trek on that day (thanks to the organized tour agency lady) there wasn’t enough Elephants for everyone. This meant that Jamie, Ben and I had to ride on other peoples Elephants, however they were still on them. Basically, there is a seat on the top of the Elephants back that other members on the group were sat on, however we didn’t sit on the seat, we sat on the Elephants neck! It was extremely scary but incredibly fun as the elephant could reach us with its trunk. I had a big bunch of Bananas which made me make friends with my “Dumbo” however, as often as I called him Dumbo, he didn’t fly! Shouting “Come on Dumbo” did amuse the others, and we made good friends with the rest of the bunch.
After we rode the elephant’s we then went White water rafting which was incredibly fun! Geared up and ready to ride the rapids, we went in a raft with an instructor and half of the adventure trekking group. We followed all kinds of commands to paddle forward, backward. Stop paddling, dive right in the raft, left in the raft, all get to the front/back which made it funny when you are with a group you have just met. It was really enjoyable, we got soaked but we were in our swimming stuff so it was all good, and very good fun. After the white water rafting we climbed onto a bamboo raft. The group had to sit down on the raft and the instructor who called me “One-man” picked me to be the raft stander-upper and powerer. (I had to poke the bamboo stick left/right to make the raft move). It was fun, and being called One-Man was also a funny experience.
When we got back we knew it was time for food, a trip to the night market and then bed for our flight to Australia the next day (Today). We got up this morning, went down to breakfast (where I had chicken tikka masala), packed and checked out on our voyage to Perth Australia.
We flew from Chiang Mai to Kuala Lumur are we currently waiting in Kuala Lumpur airport, waiting for our flight to Perth, Australia in 3 hours time. We are incredibly excited to see Perth, it will make a change from our travels around South-east asia, however it is going to be something different, and it will also be the first time (like many other places) we have been to Australia. We have already sorted out the Visa’s so we are hoping that everything is in place making our travels as smooth as possible.
When we get to the airport, Ben’s dad is going to pick us up and take us to his house where we are going to be staying for a few nights in Perth.

Again, a lengthy update but you should now be upto date with most of our trip so far. It has been fantastic, we are all loving it, and we still have over 2 weeks left to chill out and look forward to Perth and Bali