next bit!

Starting to get confused about dates and times now, but this is the next bit!
After the excitement of crashing though the jungle on elephants and then crashing through the river Ping on my backside, we decided to have a quiet day. We consulted 'The Lonely Planet' and thought a nice walk exloring Chiang Mai, with a few 'Wats' to see. It turned out to be very hot so we didnt get very far and colapsed into a cool spot for coffee and then another cool spot for lunch, and the last blog entry!
In the evening we were picked up from the hotel in a minibus to go to the Thai cultural centre for a traditional banquet and Thai dancing and music. It was actually rather lovely. Seating on a carpeted area under the stars with strange triangular cushions to lean against. We were brought various dishes of foods, the band played on a variety of strange instruments and the dancers were lovely. Exquisite girls(we think!) Ps thankyou for my happy birthday wishes!!

!2th Nov
My actual birthday spent first four hours in a mini bus driving to Pai.
Just imagine a road that felt that it had been wound like a ball of string, with the packed in passengers being thrown this way and that ( apparently 1628 bends in the road). We went way up over the mountains, with the most majestic views all around. We are now in a valley very north of Thailand not far from the borders of Burma and Laos. We emerged from the minibus hot and dusty and realised the place we were staying was still 7kms further on. We had thought we might get a moterbike for this part of the journey, but as there are two of us and two bags that are almost as big as us, the picture was a bit daunting, so we jumped into a cab! (150Bht about 3pounds)and we arrived in paradise!!
Lush green tropical plants, dear little bungalows with pretty pergolar roofs, hammocks hanging under the trees, a discreet pool, sweet sented flowers and the most enormous butterflies. Tiny little chiruppy birds, and would you believe a real Siamese cat in Siam! how cool is that!
The down side is big black beetles that scuttle around, but we have had a chat and decided that we will leave them alone if they leave us alone!
Loadspeakers with Thai music and then some sort of announcement greeted us at 7am totally indicipherable to our western ears! We found out after it was the local chicken farmer calling his workers in! An early morning dip and breakfast and then into town to hire a motorbike! yes, Nasher, me on a moterbike. Saints presrve us!

P.S
If anyone is reading this could you write some comments, please, as we have no way of knowing.

PPS
Pictures for you Will, you know which ones!!!!