Sara before getting a massage at the Women's Prison.













Written outside our hostel, funny.


Ok so let's see, where did we leave off... Well we both love Chiang Mai. The day we got into Chiang Mai we just took it easy, walked around a bit and got a few beers with some people we met at our guesthouse. The next day we rented a scooter (Sara drove, don't worry everybody) and we took off to the hills outside of the city. We went to a waterfall, which was beautiful, and we went to a huge temple up on the hill called Doi Suthep (which was packed because these last five days have been a big Thai holiday). It was BEAUTIFUL! Sara and I got lucky strings put around our wrists by an old monk in one of the prayer rooms. Everything there was gold, glittery and covered in flowers. The traffic here is TERRIBLE! We were able to scoot around it, but everyone in cars were just not moving all day it seemed. We had one little spill on the motorbike - about 3 feet before we got back to our guesthouse, we were trying to do a U-turn basically stopped on a deserted street and just tipped over. It was a little funny actually, but we could tell we were tired and needed a rest. So we got some food and sara went and took a nap while I signed up for a really really fancy spa treatment at this luxery spa. Get this Paula - for $65 I was picked up from our guesthouse and driven about 15 minutes out of town to this luxery spa. I mean this place was incredible - you walked along these floating steps to the front desk and there were fountains streaming and steam rising up. Then you were greeted with hot tea and a warm lemon towel before you were taken to your own private bungalo. There was an outdoor washroom area where everything was gorgeous stone and bamboo with a huge shower and the whole place smelled like tropical flowers. After I showered, I got a 2 hour massage (on the most comfortable massage table I"ve ever laid on) - which included a traditional thai massage, an aromatherapy oil massage and thai rock treatments. Pure bliss. Then I was really tired after that but we had wanted to check out this Reggae rooftop bar downtown by the river so we went out with a bunch of people from our hostel. I felt all detoxed out so I didn't drink anything and only lasted about an hour before I had to go to bed and crash. Today we had an all day cooking class. It was really fun and sooo good! First we were taken to a thai market in this big sort of wearhouse where there was just row after row after row of vegitables, raw meat, live (soon to be raw) meat, and fruit. Some of it was a bit much (like the buckets of huge eels flapping around and the pigs heads chillin' on tables) but it was pretty cool. We each learned how to make 6 dishes - I made Pad Thai, Yellow Curry, Rice Noodle Rolls, Chicken Cashew, Chicken Coconut soup and Sticky rice with mango. Yum yum yum! We pretty much just sat around all day cooking, eating, resting and cooking again. The lady who was our teacher was really funny - she kept making sort of lude jokes and then going "ehhhhh" to laugh at herself. When we were chopping lemongrass, she says "You no like 1 inch, maybe you like bigger--ehhhhhh!" Well when Sara and I get home, we can do a demonstration. Ok that's all from me for now. Tomorrow we're off to our trekk! We need to get some serious shut eye tonight. ~Sarah