I go' i' fo free

Sa wat dii ka (no idea if that's how it is spelt) from Pai!! Northern Thailand is where we are, in this little town of about 3900 people (according to lonely planet) and it is SO nice. Almost all the guest houses are little bungalows with their own sitting areas out front, there are countless shops and restaurants, and there are waterfalls and caves all around the town - endless exploration! If you ever come to Thailand you MUST come here. As a side note, about 80% of the people do have dreadlocks, Just that kinda place haha. Our hostel is about a five minute walk from the main part of town and is lovely and quiet, complete with hammocks on the porch! Definitely the nicest place we have stayed, we both have our OWN queen size beds (by accident) and we are paying roughly $8 per night. I'll update photos soon, I am in town at an internet cafe but did not bring my camera cord so it will have to be next time! But let's UPDATE. It has been too long since my last pos and I have so much to fill you in on! Let's take a ew steps back to where we left off - Sukothai. We took a 6 hour bus to Chiang Mai on the 8 of January - bus was comfy enough but they packed it full so people were standing in the aisles (luckily we got seats). We arrived in sunny Chiang Mai at about 3pm and got a 'taxi/bus' thing that is essentially seates mounted in the back of a pickup truck. Our hostel, called Dive Guest House, was FANTASTIC. The woman who worked at the front was sooo helpful and great - we booked everything we did through her, by simply mentioning we were interested in doing something. Next thing you know, boom, here are your tickets, they are picking you up out front at this time, the BEST. Made it so easy. Our first day happened to be a day where the town shuts off a seet for a market, called the 'walking street'. It ran till 11pm, so we put down our bags, and hit it up!! Amazing stuff, got some thai flappy pants, they are the best: nice and cool in the day, wam at night and protect against mosquitos! After 4 hours, chocolate banana belgian waffles, cheap delicious dinner, one foot massage (sarah) and a few purchases later, we headed back for an early night. The next morning, we walked around the town and checked out he 3 main temples (recommended by the hostel lady), grabbed some fruit shakes (mandarin orange - BEST) and grabbed some lunch. At 430 we were collected from our place for a COOKING COURSE!!!! So exciting!!! We got a tour of the local market and learnt about different rice, noodles, and curries; after which we had a tour of the cooking school's little garden filled with ingredients! So many herbs and mushrooms! We chose 3 dishes to cook each - one curry, one sitr-fry, and one soup. I made khao soi curry (teh local narthern curry made of red curry, yellow curry powder and coconut milk DELICIOUS) cashew chicken (of course) amd a tom yum soup! Which was so spicy my mouh was on FIRE. Haha. Sarah made a panang curry (peanut curry - SO GOOD. favourite), pad thai - classic, and a coconut cream soup. Everything was SO good. the food here is amazing. Nothing too bizare yet, have seen some crispy bugs on sticks at the market buuut probably will stay away from those :) The day after our cooking course was our TREKKING DAY!!! It all began at 830 am with a pick-up from our guide in a pickup truck bus - first stop was an orchid farm! So many cool flowers, took tons of photos, they definitely look different from home! Activity number 2 was ELEPHANT riding!! The elephants were so cute. I saw a baby and thought to myself 'aah that's not so big it'll be fine', then the adult one appeared and they are GIANT. As in climb up a platform to get onto their backs. They are so cute though. Felt bad for the guy the whole time, he just wanted some bananas. At the end of our elephant stint we got to chill with them for about 3 minues before they were off again. After elephants, we drove a little ways to the start of the path that would lead us up to a waterfall!! We walked about 30 minutes up beside the river to a little village where we were served lunch - delicious pad thai eaten out of banana leaves with pineapple for dessert. So much pineapple. Love it. Moving along the river again we arrived at the waterfall after abother half hour. Very cool - had bathing suits but decided to hold out till white water rafting! The raft we had was a patchwork of repaired holes... there was definitely a bubble happening under on of my feet but hey it survived. I can tell you why there were so many holes - never gone OVER so many rocks ahahah. Like hey there's a small boulder up ahead - let's hit it/get stuck on it/slide over it. Hilarious. Went over a few few pretty good rapids, got pretty soaked. After the white water area of the river, we transfered to a bamboo raft. So cool and peaceful. At our landing spot, we piled back into the pickup truck to head back to Chiang Mai. Great day!! BUT THE BEST PART (and what the title of this post is referring to) is the FREE MASSAGE we got for booking 2 things through our hostel! We opted for the Thai massage (1 hour) and it was sooo good. The best thing. Need to get another ASAP - or foot massage. And it was FREE. We were so pumped on that!! Afterward we went for dinner, probably delicious because it always is, and headed back to the guest house, out front of which a 'cocktail car' was parked - and so our night began. We met a few people from our gues house and went over for a bit, then decided to HIT THE TOWN. Ended up going to a place called THC, perfect, which was very cool - essentailly a rooftop bar where everyone was sitting on straw mats amongst low tables and hanging out - popular spot for dreadlocks too. After we'd had enough of the rooftop, we sought out a pool table and played a few games, then called it a night. The next day we slept in, got some photos for our Laos visa, paid our hostel dues, put some more credit on my phone, wrote some journal entries etc - had a housekeeping day. The intention was for a blog post to happen but the computer at our place wasn't working sooo that was postponed. Caught a bus at 530 up to Pai (last night) and here we are! The bus ride was preeety windy and at times definitely thought we might tip over but we made it! One girl read the entire way - kinda made me want to throw up just watching her (sorry about that) because it was SOOO windy - I could NEVER read!! Arrived in Pai around 91 and after wandering around for a while we were picked up on motorbike from the woman that runs the guest house we are now in. Veeerry nice place! Met some co-guest housers and ended up coming into town to check out some nightlife. Ended up staying pretty late and therefore slept late today. Walked around town, bought our tickets for the slow boat to Laos, got some snacks, and are gonna rent some motorbikes (NOT - scooters) tomorrow to see the sights! Time now for some dinner I think - might go for the panang :) Kudos to you if you made it through his post in one sitting - sorry for the delay!! Will be on it next time so you don't have to read such an essay :) Miss you all and hope everyone is doing well!!! SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE (Laos)!!! If you're up for some more rading, check out Sarah's blog too!: www.toastsandwiches.tumblr.com