Chiang Mai

we are now in chiang mai in the north .... and have a longer stay than planned as our Indian Visa application is taking longer than expectd ... obviously 'ready in 5 days' means that if you drop it in early on the 3rd you can pick it up on the 12th.







in the meantime though the last week has been great ! our last day in railay was great fun - although on the walk over from one beach to the other (actually quite a climb) kate spotted a monkey in the trees and in her desperation to let Toby see it .. threw it a banana ! unfortunately it was our only banana ... and as none of us speak 'monkey' we couldn't communicate this to the other monkeys who joined it ... blocking our path to try to get into our bags and baring their teeth at Toby. At this point kates maternal protection instincts kicked in and she grabbed a stick to hit them with (very brave) and as they retreated began throwing rocks .. well she says she was aiming at the monkeys but managed to only hit me !







once down the other side we booked a nightime snorkel trip which was truly amazing ... after visiting a few dive sites (lots of nemos again! ) we stopped for dinner in the dark on small empty island and just a single torch / flame thing ... stunnin!! and on the way back the boat stopped in the middle of the sea and turned off all its lights for night swimming !!!!!!!!!!! incredibly scary ... but after you jumped in all of the little phosphorescent algae light up around your body as you disturb them and the effect is an incredible shimmering around your limbs as you swim !! much to kates shock .(she had stayed on the board with TJ) .... toby announced at this point that he wanted to jump on with me and promptly did with absolutely no fear despite the dark and th huge open sea ... as i couldn't actually see him if i let him go more than 5 feet i clung onto him for dear life as he was totally oblivious to any danger !!

Onto chiang mai and on the first day we met up with one of Abis friends ... Guy ... who kindly agreed to give us some tips as he lives here - which was really useful. The next day we hired a Jeep to explore the surrounding area and had a mixed day ... started at hot springs (I may be slightly miserable but just dont get excited about hot water anymore ... whether it's coming from a tap in my bathroom or the ground so we didnt stay too long) and then went to the weirdest tourist attraction i've ever seen. The Horizon about 20 mins outside the city may actually have been quite nice ... especially as it boasted a swimming pool, maze, botanical gardens and museum, small zoo, boating lake and toy train ... but the fact that we were the only people in the car park and then proceeded to see not a single other visitor in the enitre place really freaked us out !! the atmosphere was so eerie - heightened by the fact there were hundreds of staff everywhere that we actually left because it was to spooky (and kate lost her temper with Toby ... more of that later). Ironic really because when we go to these places and they are really busy we wish we could go when they are empty. Classic moment here when Toby's imagination reached new levels and he announced that his slice of lemon in his drink was an ipod!

We then drove round further to the Four Seasons Hotel for a drink ... OMG ... quite simply the nicest hotel I have ever been to ... they have designed their restaurant to overlook working paddy fields (which they created obviously with extra beautiful flowers, trees and waterfall) with buffalo roaming etc. and I sooo wished we could blow the budged there but unfortunately at nearly 3000 quid for one night in the triple suite with live-in housekeeper Kate just wouldn't let me :( - anyhow ... after that on to a really nice National park with waterfall for sunset .. and back home.

That evening we put toby to sleep (minus his dummy which he out the blue announced he was too big for and has not mentioned since) and took him in his pram to the Night Bazaar. The indoor section is definitely the smartest market of its kind I have ever been to ... with really amazing clothes and furniture sooo cheap ... as we only have rucksacks we may well be shipping home soon !!

Yesterday we booked a great day out ... began with a 45 minute climb through the jungle to visit a Hmong tribe which was great ... Toby was happy to walk the whole way himself ... including rickety rope bridge !! -his temparament is really allowing us a better trip than we could have hoped for. The village was lovely with the dustiest one room museum I have ever seen ... they cant have cleaned the exibits for 10 years !! we walked back down again and then went for an elephant ride which Toby loved .. he even got to get out of the chair on the back and sit on the neck patting his trunk which was lovely. after that we visited another tribal village which was sooo different ... totally contrived and out to cash in on tourism. we 'stumbled' across a woman at her loom selling cloths which when we quizzed (kate said the finish was too good) she admitted she hand't actually made. It was a really different dynamic ... the first tribe had made it clear they were welcoming tourists ... i.e. they had laid on a museum and had two stands selling their local wares .. whereas the second acted like an exhibit themselves as if you had walked in on them and they had not prepared or made any effort but still wanted to sell you stuff.

We then visited the most amazing cascading waterfall ... obviously brave toby stripped off and headed straight in ... slipping repeatedly on the rocks and exhorting me to be careful as I followed him ...'cmon daddy - we can do it - Toby and Daddy - you just must be careful', before finishing with a ride down river on a bamboo raft (fortunately a calm ride except for 1 or two fast bits). Overall it was such a nice day and it also meant we got a really good nights sleep out of Toby (although he still woke up far too early this morning necessitating us sticking him in front of Lion King on the portable dvd player with headphones on for an extra 90 mins peace)

Today I'm off for the second fitting on my new suits I'm having made :) and a few more days sightseing before down to bangkok and off to delhi !!! On planning our Indian Itinerary we were so daunted by the scale and sheer amount we wanted to see that we are going to skip Angkor Watt and do ten days in India before the wedding to get more done ... otherwise places I really wanted to go like varansi and the desert in jaisalmer just weren't possible. .... Plus I'm happy to have an excuse to come back !!!

For those of you concerned about Tobys Diarrhea ... you will be pleased to know it has cleared up after 5 days (temporarily??) but I am still not sure which moment was worse .... all over the floor in Boots pharmacy in the centre of Chiang Mai or dead centre of the Labyrinth at the Horizon Village when he could have told us but chose to hide thus entailaing Kate grabbing him and despertely trying to run out of the labyrinth with him ... only to continually meet dead ends. ... why she couldn't see the funny side of this I'll never know.

M