We're both pretty tired right now after a huge day, but we're both powering forward. We now feel much more relaxed in Thailand, with ordering food, finding transport, communicating, bargaining with shop-keepers, ignoring tuk-tuk drivers.

A couple of nights ago we went to see a Muay Thai boxing competition, which we saw advertised on flyers in the street. It was an awesome experience, even though we're usually not into that sort of thing. Before the fights started, we were given a game of Connect Four to play while we waited. Naturally I won every single game except one :)

The highlight of the fights was a special bonus round, where four blind-folded boxers were let loose in the ring. As you could imagine it was absolute mayhem. Some of them were just swinging like crazy in an attempt to hit anything, and eventually they connected. I got a few good photos, but most of them were blurry because I was laughing too hard. There was a referee in the ring with them, and he got hit a number of times because people thought he was one of the boxers!! Insane stuff!

Yesterday we took a bus down to the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre. Many of the elephants in Thailand are mistreated, but this place is one of the best around (if not the best), as it has an elephant hospital, etc, and all proceeds of the entrance fees and souvenirs go to the treatment of the elephants.

We watched a show of the elephants pushing logs around in all kinds of manners, playing musical instruments and painting pictures. We bought one of the elephant paintings, and it's probably better than I could do myself! It was pretty expensive, but I figured that it was OK as all the money went to the elephants.

Then we had an elephant ride through the forest for 30 mins, and that was long enough to appreciate it. It might seem like a fair amount of time but they are slow-walking creatures, and it took about 5-10 mins just to get to the forest :)

Getting home from the elephant park was an interesting experience. We just waited on the side of the road (called the "Super Highway", I'm not kidding) for a public bus. Nee was starting to whinge because it started raining and she was tired and sick of standing around in the hope that a bus would come along, until finally a bus came and we hopped on. There weren't any spare seats, so we endured the hour long trip sitting on a stool in the aisle. Public buses are quite cheap too, this ride costing us a mere $3.50 between us.

Today we met up with Nikom, a good friend of my Uncle Brian and Aunty Prue. They've used him a few times when they've travelled in Chiang Mai and I'm glad we contacted him. We saw the snake farm (interesting show where we were almost killed by a fake snake!!), orchid farm, monkey school, and a (fake) hilltribe village.

Finally we had some decent Thai food at a bargain price. Nikom took us to a place outside of town which he goes to regularly, and it was delicious. No farang in sight :)

Just now we've managed to find a place with working headsets and Skype installed, so we called my Dad, and also Elli and Nee's Mum and Dad. Was good to hear Elli's voice as we've been missing her like crazy. Oh yeah, we miss you all like crazy too!! Thanks for all the kind comments, keep em coming :)