"The bike's not on fire - they're just trying to sell us opium"

We've now moved out of the Tree House place. It was a weird place and although it was very beautiful, you kind of had the feeling that you were living in a tourist attraction. We were often woken up to the sound of Chinese tourists outside our hut taking pictures of us. It was a bit distracting after a while.

We're now in Lychee Guest House. We liked the name. It is a lovely, quiet little place.

Our new home

There's a cute little garden and a man playing guitar here. We are given a lot of bananas as they grow in the garden. It's a great place.

Nic on a scooter - how cool is he?

We also now have a scooter, so we've been out exploring. We went to China:

Joking - of course we didn't go to China. We went to a viewpoint that looked a bit China-y. It was very beautiful and we were given some green tea which was nice (normally I hate green tea) and some seriously awesome donuts with some suspect goo. Nic assumed that the goo was goats come, but after closer examination it turned out to be similar to condensed milk. So it was nice.

We went to look for a waterfall and found 'druggie old lady road'. It was really strange, we were driving up a normal looking road when we noticed all the old ladies on the side of the road were doing the international sign for smoking. 

I immediately decide that they are trying to tell us that our bike is on fire! But it's not. Nic calmly explained that they're not telling us that the bike is on fire, they are just trying to sell us opium. Ok then.

We also went to explore the hot springs!

Initially we failed. We went to the Hot Springs Resort and found a muddy pool and a very cold pool. We were told that this was the only hot springs around. 

It was very nice though and I liked being able to sun bathe for the first time in a few weeks.

Not the hot springs!

We carried on down the road to find... the actual hot springs! They were much better...

This is hot springs!

They were very lovely, and very hot, but the water was cool before it even left the nature reserve - so how come old Hot Springs Resort - which is a few 100 meters away - has hot spring water??? It's a scam!!

Today we're trying to arrange our travel for tomorrow. We head to near Chiang Rai, to this lovely place.