OK I set up this blog months ago but things have been quiet chez Cathy at large... Until a friend sent me the link to her beautiful blog complete with photos only set up yesterday - thus prompting me to enter my first ever post...!

And this historic event is taking place in Chiang Mai up in the north of Thailand... Met Tracey and Michelle yesterday in hot humid (and if I'm terribly honest, polluted) Bangkok and got a sleeper train awaking in not so hot and humid and much less polluted Chiang Mai... (Poor Conor is stuck in India for a few more days awaiting his passport: the moral of his story - NEVER LET A LIVING SOUL NEAR YOUR PASSPORT cos all these procedures for getting a new one - well, they exist only in theory)

As of 9.30pm I can call myself a fully fledged Thai chef... Well, OK, I can lay claim to being able to cook 7 different thai dishes, including one dessert. We enrolled in a cooking course - a half day one - and learned to cook different kinds of curry, soup, salad, noodles and, ,my favourite, banana and coconut pudding steamed in banana leaves...

Tomorrow will herald my first ever elephant ride - can't wait!