Chiang Mai

Thailand is split into three distinct areas. The south is dominated by beaches and famous resorts, the centre by Bangkok, and the north by the cultural hub of Chiang Mai. If you want to learn how to do Thai massages, speak the language, trek to remote hill tribes, Chiang Mai is the place people come. We made a stop here on our way into Laos.
We passed on seeing a Muay Thai, Thai Boxing, fight in Bangkok solely due to the outlandish prices they were charging foreigners. However we were lucky to get to see a fight for a much more reasonable sum while in Chiang Mai. We arrived at the 'stadium' to see the fights and were very surprised to see 14 year old kids kicking and punching each other to bits in the ring. After overcoming our initial shock we really enjoyed seeing the national sport in the flesh. We even got to see a knockout and a female match where a Chinese girl destroyed a Thai girl much to the crowds horror.
Food is integral to Thai culture, you simply cannot escape it. There are street stalls on every corner of every city. One thing you can be sure of is that the famous Thai chillies are never far away. So, we decided to treat ourselves to a 1-day cooking course run by a famous Thai TV Chef who has done shows for the BBC. It was great fun and very fulfilling both physical and emotionally. We got to cook 6 traditional Thai dishes ranging from fried noddles in sweet soy sauce to chicken in yellow curry. All our dishes came out reasonably well and we still haven't experienced and symptons of food poisoning so things look good.
Tomorrow we are off the Laos, which we are told feels like you have stepped back into the 1970's.