More dentists and more night markets in Chiang Mai....

We've now been in chiang Mai for 8 days, the longest we have been anywhere since the start of the trip. We obviously would have moved sooner if it wasn't for the massive inconvenience of having my wisdom tooth removed.

The past few days, since my operation on Friday really, have been incredibly quiet. The pain at times, has been excruciating, far worse than I was expecting! Shell, bless her, has tried hard not to become disillusioned with our time here through four days of me not wanting to do anything but curl up into a little ball. We have managed to go out, walk around the now very familiar streets and try to keep ourselves occupied as much as possible. It's just quite hard when at least one of us is just bloody fed up.

The op itself was ok, apart from the bit when he told me he would have to chisel the tooth into four pieces to get it out as it had partly grown into the adjacent tooth. Apart from the noises and a horrible feeling in my lower jaw as he yanked it out, all was ok, done in 45 minutes. The problem began as soon as I left the building. Pain so bad I wanted to cry, and shell could see this, so we both rushed back to the room.

For the past few days I've eaten nothing but soup, porridge and the occasional Thai curry. To be fair to chiang Mai, those three items are sold everywhere as it surely has to lay claim to be being the vegetarian and health food capital of the world. We've obviously visited a lot of places by now but here, amongst the kinds of people that frequent and own the establishment's here, it's the nearest we have got to being back home in sunny Southsea.

It's something we have managed to do in abundance, to glide effortlessly from restaurant to coffee shop, bar to street cafe, making the most of the free wifi to plan our next few months. This is fine, but usually this kind of thing is interspersed with activities, sightseeing and things do to, stories to accumulate to tell you on here! Unfortunately we have none of that today...

Saturday, to add to the heady mix of painkilling medication and alcohol, was the anniversary of Ady's death, five years to be precise. It's my mum and dad I feel most for during this time, as I have never really had the chance to spend this time with them since his death. So being in Asia, on a hotel roof, drinking beer looking at the mountains, a certain amount of melancholy started to grip me. Of wishing he was back home, insanely jealous of his little brothers whereabouts or actively planning to come and join us. Either way, I just hope he was with us in sprit. If not, then I demand to know where else he would have been!

One of the cool things about staying a little longer here is that it is the King's birthday here on Monday. Normally, as in the UK, this would mean a celebratory coin or box of shortbreads, as an extravagance they might even fly the flag at half mast. Here, the admiration for their Monarch reaches infatuated levels. The entire population have images of the king adorning their walls at home and in the case of this weekend, have images so big of their beloved leader that they make Stalin look like a car salesman. See photo above...

The celebrations for the Kings birthday started some days before with crackles of fireworks heard right across the city, much like chavvies setting off rockets at the end of October back home. On Sunday, the night before the big day, the Sunday walking street returned so we walked the streets for a while, bought another couple of items then once again, headed back home in pain.

Although today went in much the same fashion as the previous days, we did have our first massages of the trip. Shell opted for the back, shoulder, neck and head massage and I went in for the traditional Thai. Although the room and the setting were unbelievably relaxing, my Thai massage was, minus the small polite thai masseuse, what I would expect to happen in say..Guantanamo Bay, or maybe medieval London. She stretched, pummelled and smacked me around for an hour while shell, looking like a scene from a spa brochure, looked a picture of serenity. I have to be honest and say I can't feel a great deal different other than the fact I now know about twelve more areas around my body that will hurt if you press it really hard...

So, stitches out tomorrow! Then we finally get to do our Thai cooking class on Wednesday then fly south to Phuket and the Thai islands on Thursday.

We are both really looking forward to some sun, sand and sea after a few weeks inland but it's December! Where are the grey, frosty mornings and annoying supermarket Christmas carols??

Much love, Tommo xx