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I spent this morning at the Chilli Club cooking academy with my new friends Dafne (Basque) and Anja (German). We started with a trip to a local market to buy ingredients, before starting on some serious cooking. Between us, we cooked red, green and yellow curries, stir fried vegetables, pork and pad thai, sticky rice, spring rolls and a chicken soufflé. The food was fantastic, and as an added bonus I now have invitations to come and stay in Spain and Germany when I pass through. Dafne lives near Pamplona, which may come in handy in early July…

Last night we added Reece (England) to our party and hit the Chiang Mai night Bazaar and markets. I bought some Thai paper lanterns (my first purchase in this country!) which I’ll post home today. Afterwards, Reece’s friend Toby arrived from Phuket, where he’d been nursing an injured friend for the last few days. Jo, Toby, Reece and I sat in an Irish pub for a few hours, drinking cheap Thai beer because not even the Irish like Guinness.

Starting a three day trek into the hills tomorrow morning. Looks like Anja, Dafne and Jo are coming, too. Some time next week, Jo and I are going to head across the border into Laos and then take the slow boat down the Mekong.