Thailand

After two days in Bangkok, we took a train north to Chiang Mai. It was luxury; we bunked out and nibbled on salty Thai snacks. We arrived during Songkran, the New Year Festival, and since it's the hottest month of the year, the locals celebrate by gently pouring cupfuls of water over Buddha statues and dousing each other with super-soakers and buckets of water from the encircling moat, symbolically washing away the past year's worries.

In addition to waterfighting in the wet streets, we lounged out in the guesthouse pool and read. One day we really got ambitious and took a Thai cooking course. Our instructor was a bit of an eccentric drama-queen. He'd go over the ingredient list and exclaim, "Egg! Of course, everybody's knows egg! Garlic! Of course, everybody knows garlic!!! Right?" He gave Mike a creepy vibe, but it was awesome to make our own spring rolls, pad thai, green curry, fish souffle, coconut custard in steamed pumpkin and our favourite, cashew chicken.

Back in Bangkok, we toured temples, malls and markets and our senses were bombarded by the complete olfactory spectrum. Smells of all sorts -- curry, sewage, sage, spring rolls, exhaust, perfume, cigarette smoke, coconut oil. It's hot as a tea kettle here and noisy too. That's the main reason to go into temples, I suppose. It's been a fun but gritty two weeks. Off to Rome, where all roads lead. Ciao.