oop norf

so we went to ko phangan, did a bit of snorkelling which was cool, met an lovely welsh girl called hannah who's been loads of different places & eaten spiders & snakes an all sorts of weird things... she & i went for a thai massage which feelis a bit like being beaten up & mine was done by a ladyboy which amused us greatly.

decided we'd had enough of the island thing so jumped an overnight bus to bangkok. missed out on a seat so got to curl up on a couch thing in the VIP area, quite snug only to be turfed out onto the khao san rd at 5am, quite a rude awakening!

bangkok wasn't quite what i'd expected, though i'm not entirely sure what i was expecting? all we did was a lot of shopping really... pirate dvds, brightly coloured tshirts, headphones. oh yeah, we saw sweeney todd at the cinema, you have to stand up for the national anthem and a photo montage of the king, plus they fuzzed out all the good gory throatslitting parts & the label on the bottle when the boy is drinking gin... i guess childhood alcoholism isn't encouraged in thailand?!

other highlights included:
- the little boy pooing on the pedestrian overpass
- the cabbages & condoms restaurant - tasty foods AND a free condom with your bill at the end plus lots of things made from condoms, lamps, dresses, pirate ships
- fortune telling buddha slot machines... mine was the best, lots of good things coming my way apparently, yay!
- high speed local buses that career along the roads, take all corners on only two wheels, screech to a halt to let you off & start driving away before your feet have even touched the ground. very efficient indeed.
- weird lady from northern england who accosted us on a traffic island, foaming at the mouth & babbling about missing her nephew's wedding. when i said i was from nz she complimented me on how fluently i spoke english!

now we are in chiang mai after our train bunk beds adventure. i had freaky dreams which included someone stealing all our peanut butter but i didn't fall out of the bed which was my main fear.

it's ncie up here, cooler, quieter & much less hassle than bangkok. have seen lots of shiny gold buddhas & temples, watched some kids skateboarding, seen loads of monks in their orange & yellow gears. tomorrow we're learning thai cookery, productive! no guarantees that i'll be able to recreate any of it later but some of you might get lucky!