We decided to travel to Thailand on a plane as apose to at least 35 hours on the bus and dodgy borders.
Although I think that the buses, trains and tùk tùks are something everyone must try, and not something i would have liked to miss, flying was such a delightful luxury at this point in the game. 
We arrive at our destination; in a different country no less, 3 hours after leaving our hostel. A completely unheard of miracle! 

After settling in I took a nap and Cat started to plan our trip to Australia. Dear people of the world, if you want to choose a good travel companion, make sure you choose Catherine Kite, or at least someone with her outlook on life, general loveliness and propensity toward wanting things to be sorted and in good order.
That night we hung out with an extreme girl from several different places in Europe, depending upon when you asked her. We also met a cool Belg and yet another Frenchy! 

Chaing Mai was a bit of a culture shock in reverse. We had left Lao, one of the countries named in the poorest 20 of the world and been catapulted into a city with either a McDonalds, Burger King or Starbucks on every street corner. Overly made up (wo)men beckoning clientele into the bars with bored looks on their faces. Western style restaurants churning out drunken Europeans and Americans. Beautiful Thai women holding hands or linking arms with portly--no overweight, 60+ white men, usually with some sort of awful body odour problem. That particular practise made me sick. 

But, probably unsurprisingly there were redeeming features about his city- the best $1 Pad Thai ever eaten, a lovely river teeming with fish running through the main street, friendly faces when you make the effort to greet people, sabadeekaa, for future reference. Oh and I totally forgot they offer the best courses, for anything, ever! Massage, art therapy, yoga, muay Thai, and of course cookery. 

I am now Thai chef! We went to cookery course where we learned how to make all manner of delish dishes! Although it was only half a day long I  managed to cook up an absolute culinary feast of thai green curry, basil chicken, caramelised bananas and of course Pad Thai. Thought I would explode with all of that food!  
That night we hung out with Belgium and Frenchy 3 at the Sunday night market. I love that place, so many talented people selling their wares and crazy people walking around- a great place to practise the sport of people watching.  
Belgium bought many various bugs from the market and chowed down, he made a bug fuss over nothing though! Of course i had to try the bugs- afterall it's a big adventure isn't it?! I tried a silk worm and a small cricket. No big deal.  
Until about 45 minutes later when the thought of what I'd eaten was too much for me and I threw up. I'm so tough! 

Today was a slow day after bad nights sleep. I am really missing various members of our gang, and have other emotional traumas which are just putting me completely at loggerheads with myself. 
I Love Cat though, she is constantly pulling me out of my shitty moods especially when I'm missing people. An excellent friend and a wonderful distractor!  And full of clichés.. Hehe!
We did a few little errands throughout the day and booked a bus ticket to the north but still felt completely out of sorts until out of nowhere someone jumped on us from behind...FRENCHY & Frenchy 2, they greeted us with such warm embraces I almost burst into tears of joy! 
Of course we extended our bus tickets and hung out with them for the night drinking at a little bar then moving on to a club for some dancing and an impromptu foam party when I found a canister of shaving foam! Yet another excellent past night with members of the wolfpack!

We got a minibus up to Pai the next morning, another twisty turny ride ending with the most beautiful views but the most sad stomaches! Imagine being in a washing machine after eating noodle soup or something- you'll get the feeling.