After a month in Thailand our tourist visas are up so its time to say goodbye to the land of smiles. (Although perhaps not for  long as we plan to come back again after we visit Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos). So its bed time here in Bangkok and tomorrow morning at 6am we will be all aboard the train to Cambodia. It is a 6 hour train ride in economy class to the border, apparently locals travel free so there should be an interesting mix of people on the train! Its def not going to be the most luxurious train ride ever but I think we are all so excited about going to Cambodia that we wont care. Even if we have to sit on the floor among the local farmers with their chickens we'll still be happy. So cherrio for now. We will be in touch again soon to let you know how the chickens smelled!

Una mañana como cualquiera, habiamos salido a pasear por Chiang Mai, en el Norte de Tailandia, para visitar unos templos budistas. En uno de ellos, un monje se acerco para hablar con nosotros y se ofrecio para enseñaros las multiples caras de buda en un templo cerrado al publico normalmente. Lo de las diferentes caras es en realidad un efecto de como inciden las luces en su cara, que con el color oro que le cubre, hace un juego de sombras. Tras esta demostracion, el monje llamado Liana empezo a hablarnos sobre el budismo y sobre la meditacion. Lo que empezo como una simple conversacion acabo siendo una sesion de introduccion a la meditacion y a un debate sobre la religion budista. Cuando despues de unas horas salimos del Wat, me sentia tranquilo y relajado. No me voy a convertir en monje budista pero unas sesiones de meditacion de vez en cuando no vendrian nada mal... Tampoco es que me siente especialmente estresado estos ultimos 12 meses pero me apetece explorar un poco mas el tema de la meditacion. Ya os ire contando mas cosillas.

One thing I love about traveling is the adventure of it all, you never know when you get up in the morning how the day will unfold. Like the other day we planned to go for a simple walk around the city of Chang Mai (Northern Thailand) to have a quick look at some of the Buddhist temples, when all of a sudden we find ourselves in a special temple usually closed to tourists, and learning to meditate with a Buddhist monk?! What was supposed to be a short walk around town turned into a two hour conversation with a monk and an introductory session of meditation!!! It was the first time Id ever tried anything to do with meditation and I have to say I wouldnt mind giving it another go. We arent exactly stressed at the minute anyway but after our class with the monk we felt almost like we were floating. Dont worry we wont go all "peace out brother"!! on you but we are def considering doing some more meditation perhaps here or in India. Apparently there is a 21 day course but once I heard that it was 21 days without talking I quickly ruled that out! The three day course might suit me better!