Lunag Prabang Night Market

The market sold all sorts of things from clothes to food cooked on stalls along the edge of the road.

Calming of the seas budha in Luang Prabang

More Luang Prabang Sunset

Luang Prabang

We arrived in Luang Prabang late in the afternoon and we climbed straight up the hill in its centre to watch the sunset over the town.

Boat trip into Laos

Every now and then our boat would stop to deliver parcels to villages along the edge of the Mekong and also pick up goods to transport to somewhere else including chickens packed tightly into baskets.

Pak Beng

On our two boat trip to Luang Prabang in Laos we stayed over night at Pak Beng perched on the edge of the Mekong. There wasn't much going on there but the view from the main balcony at breakfast was pretty inspiring.

Mekong River

This is a view from the Chaing Kong in Thailand side of the Mekong looking toward Laos on the other side.

Chiang Kong

A pagoda and guarding lion in Chiang Kong where we spent one night before crossing into Laos.

Long necked tribe

As part of tthe Chang Rai trip we visited the 'long necked' tribe so called for obvious reasons. They all looked really sad though as you walked around and you really got the feeling they were being exploited for tourism.

Thai/Myanmar border

This is the bridge leading over the river between the Thailand and Mynamar border in the north. Got taken there as part of a Chang Rai/Golden Triangle trip from Chang Mai that turned out to mostly sitting in a cramped poorly conditioned minibus for about 10 hours and spending about 2hours doing stuff.

Snake Whiskey

Some Cobra Whiskey at the souvineer village in Laos. (You could generally buy this in Laos and Vietnam everywhere anyway. In Cambodia for $25 we could have had a whole snake killed, blood drained to drink, and then cook and eat the snake itself. Fancied a shot of the blood but didn't want to pay that much for the whole thing so we gave it a miss)

Golden Triangle

The area around the Mekong where Thailand, Laos and Myanmar come together is refered to as the Golden Triange and used to be a large opium growing area. This has mosly been erdicated now although it is still grown on the Myanmar side. We went on a very touristy speedboat ride on the Mekong around the area stopping in a soveniour village in Laos for 10 minutes.

Large sitting Budha near Chang Rai

We went on a day trip to visit sites around Chang Rai. This is a big temple containing a large sitting budha.

Thai Reggae Band

During a night out in Chang Mai we found a Reggae band and watched this band. It was strange seeing Thai people with dreadlocks but the band were really good. Unsuprisingly they played alot of Bob Marley songs.

Chang Mai Sunday Market

Every Sunday there is a large night time market in Chang Mai that Thai people from all over the area travel to. This is a view looking down one of the busy streets with stalls down the sides.

Our cookery class

Our cookery class group including the two supervisors, two friends Kate and Susan, then mike on the end.

Thai Cooking

As part of the cooking course we learnt how to cook six dishes including spring rolls, a type of beef curry, spicy fish soup and cutting out pretty shapes out of vegetables.

Chang Mai Market

We signed up for a Thai cookery course at the 'Thai Thai Cookery School' which included a trip round a local market where our guide pointed out to us types of strange fruit and vegetables and bought some for us to taste.

The market had all sorts including fried insects. Was going to try some but our guide said somepeople are allergic to them and react badly. Didn't want to risk it so wimped out. Saw something I reckognised I had eaten a few days previously that turned out to be fried insect legs. They were salty.

The market had lots of fresh produce including frogs packed into a basket and fish in fish tanks ready to picked out. Also had pigs heads and intestines on show that didn't go down to well with a vegetarian girl on the course.

Treking group

Our treking group of eleven having dinner near a waterfall where we all spent the night in a wooden hut.

Treking cont..

Some of the group crossing a river on a slippy log.

Treking

On the second day our group of eleven split into two depending how difficult you wanted it to be. Mike, me joined three others on the longer option which included crossing rivers up to the waste and climbing some really steep slippy slopes.

Karen Hill Tribe II

A school in the village we were staying. The kids seemed pretty happy to play up to the cameras.

Karen Hill Tribe

On the first night of the trek we stayed in a village of the karen tribes people, the most common native tribe in Thailand. This is me in the village with the hills behind me.

Waterfall on the first day of treking

This was the first break point on the trek where we went swimming in the pool around the waterfall.

Treking

Everynow and then the forest would open up and you would find rice paddie fields like this one.

Treking near Chang Mai

This is the start of a three day trek in the mountains and forests around Chang Mai.

Elephant ride near Chang Mai

We went on an elephant trek near Chang Mai which was enjoyable. You buy bags of bananas and sugar cane on the way round and when the elephant wants some it lifts its trunk above its head, you place some food on the snout and it wraps it up and lowers it to its mouth. Every now and then when they lift their trunks they slober everwhere and you get splattered with it.

The guy sat on the elephants neck is Olly, his guide put him there then jumped off and disappeared leaving them at the elephants mercy. At one point their elephant walked up to the edge of a cliff and its a good job it didn't lean forward to much!

Reclining Budha

A reclining budha within the same complex of temples

Temple entrance in Chang Mai

Another temple in the same complex as the pyramid like structure. Inside was a elderly monk sat cross legged in a glass box meditating. Didn't think he was real at first but when you get closer you could see his eyes watery and glazed staring ahead. Didn't take a picture because for some reason I thought I might put him off.

Pyramid temple in Chang Mia

Really impressive pyramid temple we found in Chang Mai. A golden leafed budha can be seen sitting at the top and some 5 serpent heads on each side at the bottom. Theres some half visible kid budhist monks just visible in the moat at the front (it was dry). They were funny to watch as they were playing around as well as working, groups of them would get in a wheel barrow and one would push them around wobling all over the place. they were supposed to be cleaning the moat out.

Some Budha Statues

Some Budha statues we saw while wandering around chang mai.

Chang Mai

We arrived at Chang Mai on an overnight bus from Bangkok. The first day we just wandered around the old town. This is a statue infront of Chang Mai Culture Centre.

Another part of the Marble Palace

See title

Inside the Marble Palace

View from inside the Marble Palace in Bangkok. Another Sitting Budha.

A Sitting Budha somewhere in Bangkok

The problem with taking a tuk tuk is you often have no idea where you are or what you are looking at. This is quite an impressive Sitting Budha with quite ornate decoration in the surrounding Wat.

Marble Temple

Marble Temple. Funnily enough a temple clad in marble.

Tuk tuk

View from inside tuk tuk. Getting driven around in a tuk tuk can be a bit unnerving at times especially when you hit busy roads where you get a face full of thick fumes for good measure.

Got used to it after a while until it rained. As it was monsoon season it rained hard and we got absolutley soaked. And to make things worse, as we didn't really buy much in a previous shop he took us to (they're on commission) he decided he had to go home so just dropped us in the middle of nowhere where we had to flag another tuk tuk down.

Wat next to 'Lucky Budha'

We got into a tuk tuk on the first day to see where it would take us. It took us to a fictional lucky budha (today only day shrines open). It was a tiny shrine but there also happened to be a friendly guy who reckoned he was a school teacher who appeared. He was friendly enough for a while although avoiding any questions about lucky budha. Eventually he got onto the subject of suits and how today only was a special day because of the kings anniversary and that suits were on offer. Amazing how seemingly 'random' guys who come up to you in Bangkok either recomend suit shops, boat rides or offer 'cheap' tuk tuks that inevitably end up at suit/jewellry shops. Anyway, next to the 'lucky budha shrine' was this real one that was quite nice.

Inside a temple

Inside a Wat next to the Standing Budha

Standing Budha

Standing Budha in Bangkok.

Khao San Road

Looking up Khao San Road round the corner from where we were staying

Petrol Station Bar

Probably cos we were drinking in a (working by day) petrol station. There must be some health and safety regulations regarding that. And lit candles too!