Sawasdee!

Sawasdee or hello from Chiang Mai!

We can't believe how long we've been in Chiang Mai - it's almost 6 weeks, give or take a week in Pai! It's not that we love the place, it's just that we decided to do a Thai massage course. There are two styles to Thai massage, Southern, which is harder and Northern, which is softer. Both styles originate from the same teachings of Dr Shivaga, not to be confused with Dr Zhivago, who was said to be the physician to Bhudda. In Wat Po in Bangkok are some of the original sandstone carvings that show the first anatomical drawings and explanations of the massage.

In Chiang Mai a teacher at the Old Medicine Hospital was responsible for breaking the massage down into steps that could be taught. He now runs the International Training and Massage School, which is where we are learning. We've completed level 1 and 2, which are the foundations of Thai massage and this week we are doing level 4, which is the therapeutic application of Thai massage for the treatment of headaches, backaches and so on.

Thai massage is done clothed and doesn't use oils; it's based on a series of stretches and pressure points. If it's done well it leaves the receiver feeling relaxed and energised. It has been dubbed 'yoga for lazy people' as  you are effectively taken through a yoga work-out. This means the giver of the massage has to be relatively fit. Here we had our first stumbling block! Not only are we unfit, we have done nothing much for the last 9 months. We had to get up at 7am and cycle 15 minutes to the massage school where we started every day with 30 minutes exercise - yoga and Tai Chi. Can you imagine how tired we were to begin with?!

On the third week we stopped using the bikes and walked/ran into school. Actually, this wasn't planned, I found out that the bike man had been overcharging for the bikes, had a barney with him and wasn't prepared to give him anymore money!! Mark arrived home on Sunday evening and found out we had no bikes for the week. But every cloud has a silver lining!!

This could be the beginning of a new fit us!! I loved being a beach bum last year, but now I'm thinking morning exercise of run and yoga and then beach bum in the afternoon! OK, there, I've said it, now you can hold me to it!!

Apart from learning massage, we've met some really cool people on the course and the wierd thing is we now enjoy a weekend! All the days blended into one, but now Friday night is a big deal again! There are a collection of bars here, they ran a festival at the beginning of April called Smile. They are all set in one big courtyard where you can choose from live ska bands, live Indie, house, techno, grime etc. A lot of students from the massage school go down and it's been really cool just wandering from bar to bar seeing people you know in most of them and having a dance and a laugh before moving onto the next bar!

There's not much else to report at the moment apart from our future plans. We need to sort out our Indian visa and a new Carnet de Passage for the vehicle, which we'll probably do whilst in Chiang Mai. This will require a visa-run on Sunday as we should be out of Thailand by then. After the paperwork is sorted we're off to Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.

Sawasdee or goodbye, for now!

Love Jo and Mark xx