March1st

woke up at 4.30 this morning..rubbish. had a random thai peek his head around my top bunk curtain and offer me orange juice. When I refused he glanced at the trickle of rum left in Martin's bottle that Holly and crew drank last night & decided to offer me a beer instead...fair enough.
The sunrise was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Looking from the back of the tuk tuk we watched a blood red sun rise into a bright pink sky over the already hectic Chiang Mai.
On reaching the new guest house we all began salivating at the sight of the 'all you can eat' breakfast sign for 99 Baht. Paid up and plates ahoy we waited in anticipation to see what the buffet was...well it was weird. bacon...normal...eggs....normal...pancakes...normal....rice...bit weird...cucumber...weird...curry...k bye.....ok thailand..whatever floats your boat.
Today's main activity was a four hour bike ride with my new favourite tour guide chip, who i will marry and steal away from thailand. Me, Claire, Ruth and Shim were the only ones on the tour and we had an ace time. The actual riding of the bikes was pretty awsome...great views of the river pong and farmers tending to their rice fields.
Chip was quite shy at first and explained that he was used to taking out groups of 30 fourty year old dutch men not 'four beautiful girls'...aww.
I noticed that every where we rode we gor stared at.Children get excited and wave as if you are some sort of celebrity..i guess its coz we are so rich in comparison to them...we may not think that when we are back home but we are so lucky. Household objects like playstations are old hat in britain, everyone has one..in thailand there are sign posts showing you to the one place where you pay to play on such a luxury item...crazy.
Chip was exlpaining how he used to be Buddhist but he feels it let him down so he doesn't practice anymore. Apparently his grandad was a rebellious monk who took drugs and decided to kill four people...we were all pretty shocked and didn't know what to say.
Also went to the leprosy colony and a craft shop selling products made by those who lived there. It asw amazing, we went into the workshop behind and saw a man carve a plaque of the last supper so casually..yet it was so intricate and detailed.....what a day.