Thailand 2013 (3) The Mad Inventor’s Toasting Machine and the Train Journey that Wasn’t

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Gosh I'm tired. Think I'll go have a nice quiet snooze beside the railway track...

Gosh I’m tired. Think I’ll go have a nice quiet snooze beside the railway track…

I love that even moderately-priced hotels have idiosyncrasies galore in Asia. When going to the hawng nam (toilet) in the lobby of our hotel, I had to physically pick up the sliding door and heft it across the doorway before locking it with one of those safety chains that are often used on people’s front doors. In the breakfast room, they have a fascinating toaster that looks like it’s out of a mad inventor’s workshop. Your bread goes up a conveyor belt, is toasted under hot elements, then the toaster spits your toast back out the bottom. Unless it doesn’t, in which case you are required to perform delicate surgery with a pair of long metal tongs, potentially receiving a free new hairstyle courtesy of the hotel. Service plus around here…  Continue reading →

Good Dentist in Chiang Mai and a Good Guesthouse with Cafe Also

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I researched dentists in Chiang Mai a lot before I settled on one. There are a lot of opinions out there, as well as dentist and clinic names, and it can get very confusing – even more so if you’re a blonde like me. Continue reading →

I Want to Ride my Bicycle…

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We survived the visa run to Myanmar and now we want to hire bicycles and ride around Old Chiang Mai. Many mysterious lanes abound. Looks like rain though, so we might walk instead and do a bit of a recon. It has nothing to do with sleeping in a tad and wasting half the morning already. Nor is grinding to a halt over coffee and banana pancakes relevant…

Scorpions – We Luvs Them!!

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Today we went to the Siam Insect Zoo to play with scorpions and peruse terantulas. Lovely beasties!

Tomorrow we’re popping over to Myanmar (Burma) for a few minutes (as you do) to do a visa run. We need to extend our visas for Thailand and have decided not to go to Cambodia, which would been the alternative method, so we will do a mad dash up to the Golden Triangle instead. We will technically step over into Myanmar, wander about for 30 minutes and reenter Thailand with a 15 day extension stamped in our passports. What can go wrong, right?

So durned cute and cuddly.

So durned cute and cuddly.

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Thailand 2013 (2) City Cats and Condensed Milk by Marcel Marceau

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I'm little, but I'm loud and I've only just started on you...

I’m little, but I’m loud and I’ve only just started on you…

Continuing from my previous email, where we had just got to bed in our hotel in Bangkok.

 Breakfast was a buffet that came with the price of our room. I chose a harmless little number that turned out to be really hot curry. Who would do that  to someone without at least planting a skull and crossbones flag beside it? Sadists!! Thankfully there were several sorts of pastries to compensate for the singeing of my tastebuds. Sadly, they didn’t have condensed milk to pour over them, like they did last year. And you try to explain ‘condensed milk’ to someone that doesn’t speak english – no amount of miming covers it, so I just gave up and scoffed them dry. At least they soaked up the curry. 

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Two Dentists in One Day and the Unusable Swimming Pool

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I'm cool and refreshing and you can't use me. Na na na na nah!

I’m cool and refreshing and you can’t use me. Na na na na nah!

I went to two different murder houses, erm, dentists today. Both lots had a go at me and then at my wallet. Still, my wallet actually survived (as did I, obviously), which it never would have done back in my mother country. Continue reading →

If you love Pina Coladas…

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Just trying my first ever Pina Colada, courtesy of my sweetheart, at ‘The Cathouse’cafe next to our guesthouse. Not sure if they realise how that translates in English… He even sang me the song. Cheers Peter for leading me astray. A most unusual occurrence…

Sleeeeeeeep…

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If I keep really still that mosquito might think I'm just a sticker on the roof. Yes, I think it is working... Dammit, I've got an itch!

If I keep really still that mosquito might think I’m just a sticker on the roof. Yes, I think it is working… Dammit, I’ve got an itch!

Yesterday, after two full on weeks at Elephant Nature Park, we arrived back in Chiang Mai and limped up the stairs of our guesthouse to our new temporary home. Today was spent inspecting the insides of our eyelids and supping on mango shakes. The tattered remains of our feet are very grateful and gradually returning to bearable state. I don’t expect that tearing off to the Sunday Walking Market last night helped them very much, nor the bar-hopping we did afterwards  with a couple of miscreants we’d met at the park. Tonight, after having dinner at the Night Bazaar, we are cruising on our balcony watching a family of geckos doing their thing on the ceiling above us. I’m hoping that in the next day or so I can remove the plasters from my blisters and walk normally again. Ah, the little things in life…

 

Medo

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Every day we share this space for a little while with Medo, Mae Lanna and Sri Prae. This is Medo - Ayla's foster ele.

Every day we share this space for a little while with Medo, Mae Lanna and Sri Prae. This is Medo – Ayla’s foster ele.

Update from ENP – Snippets

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This afternoon we were planting trees for elephant medicine and we got caught in a thunderstorm. So we all took shelter under a local house and I whiled away the time taking photos of chickens. As you do…