Abroad in Thailand.

Oh my god, someone call CNN... is this really happening? Am I really blogging?

Yes, it must be true... I have finally lifted up my lead-weight butt to put fingertip to keyboard and drum out a blog post. True, I did disappear to Thailand for a few days, but I've been back almost a week for goodness sake. I've been mostly busy, but also a bit lazy.

But it's time to get back into it.

I'm not going to waffle on and on about Thailand, because that would be, well, showing off, wouldn't it? Can one write about their adventures in such a beautiful, free-spirited place and not sound a tad boasty?

So, instead, I'll share a few pictures from our delightful but lightning-speed visit to Chiang Mai; a lovely little pocket close to the border of Burma (or Myanmar, depending on where you stand on the whole junta thing) of green mountains, massages, ladyboys, kickboxers, tigers, elephants, snakes, mojitos and fire-hot chilli.

Here are a few highlights before I kick off the photos:

- Seeing family. It's just all there really is, isn't it.

- Getting a massage every day. Isn't that illegal in some countries?

- Having dinner and dancing with the Prince of Malaysia... totally unexpected! He was a guest at my dad's conference. Of course dad never mentioned it until it was like, "that's the Prince of Malaysia". Okay then.

- Cuddling baby tigers... BLESS THEIR TINY PAWS AND BABY TIGER TEETH. Mega heart stoppage. My dad was brave enough to enter the pen with the large tiger, who they say is trained and comfortable around humans. So the twelve-thousand kilo tiger with the razor-sharp teeth and claws told them that then? Maybe even wrote it down and signed it?


- Visiting the 'long neck people' (see photo at the top of this post). Bizarre, yet beautiful women.

- Riding an elephant. Likely cruel, I know, but something I honestly wanted to do once in my life. Plus, I think our 27-year-old lady-phant could handle me and B perched upon her gracious back - neither of us weigh that much.

- Experiencing the sheer freedom of the Thai people. Asia is generally made up of such restricted cultures in terms of what's considered acceptable behaviour and what's not. In Thailand? Pretty much anything goes and noone bats an eyelid. Hence the plethora of ladyboys. Love it.