Birthday and Cycling

I just wrote a huge blog and then lost it somehow - ahhhh....

I was saying how touched I was this morning at receiving so many wishes and pressies from my friends at Chaba and Walai! Joy gave me a gorgeous Thai lamp with flower motif panels and Louisa got me the Nancy Chandler maps of Bangkok and Chiang Mai - I've been looking for these for a while!! Karen who is such a special person was overly kind and got me a whole bag of goodies - lovely herbal balls and ginger balm along with pac-a-bags for the extensive shopping I am going to do at some point!! She also got me some amazing picture cards that I will frame when I return home, lovely elephant pictures with such detail! THANK YOU TO EVERYONE I was really overwhelmed:-)

Its amazing how close I feel to these people that have only been in my life for a few weeks, we are sharing new experiences together and have become quite a close knit community. I know I will keep in touch with many of them and hopefully we will meet up again in other parts of the world.

I'm off cycling later with Courtney and Karen to some remote villages around Chiang Mai - Louisa asked us where we would be and I told her to just come find us in the hospital later as Karen and I are quite nervous about this 'gentle cycle ride' we anticipate some hectic hills and terrain!!