So its nearly been 2 weeks since we left the land of England and yes this is my first entry.

We were in Bangkok for 4 days where we did our first tour, we went to the floating market, the bridge over the river Kwai and the tiger temple. It started at 7am, which was a struggle as we went out the night before and sampled buy one get one free buckets of cocktails. It was a bit messy, my face still has blotches. Hehe. Anyway we made it and did loads of driving all day, the floating market was nice but packed full of tourists, then then we walked over the bridge over river Kwai (which I feel I should read up on as dont know the history) Its so crazy its a railway bridge and so dangerous to cross, cause of all the peopl, no he3alth and saftey over here.

Finally we went to the tiger temple, where they have tigers that are basically tame. We had loads of pics with them, not sure how much I morally agreed with it all, as they were chained up but all the volenteers claim that they are building a sort of conservation place fo0r them. We were there at the end of the day so then saw 2 cubs which we were playing with for ages, they were so cute and trained not to bite which is good.
We still havent made it to the grand palace but are going back to Bangkok a few times so still hvae chance.

We then headed up to Chaing Mai for our birthdays and trecking.

So yes we awoke on my birthday (9th March) to terenchal rain and thought, oh no its going to be muddy, but luckily by the time we left it was bright sunshine again and boiling hot. We stopped at a market on the way to buy food for the trip and me and kirsty managed to find a birthday cake complete with candles that we just managed to fit into our already bulging day packs.

We stopped for lunch before we were heading off on a 3 hour treck to the first nights camp. 3 hours sounds not to bad until we started, we were told it was uphil for the last hour but it was uohil from the start and after 2 hours we were nearly out of water and exhauseted, Kirsty had a bit of a panic attack so the guide took her bag and then the real uphil started, it was like walikg up really steap uneven steps with no end in sight, by the end I was having to stop about every 10 steps. It was hell!!! Fun birthday hu. hehe. However when we finally reached the top we were staying and after a liter of water and a sprite I was able to appreciate the amazing view and location of our first stay. Our guide took us around the village and told us all of the rituals etc of the local people which was really interesting. Again the views were increadable, not suprising as we were about 1300m up.

We were in a group of 10 people, 3 English lads, 1 Canadian girl, 3 Japanese girls and 1 Japanese guy.

The 3 English and Canadian girl and us stayed up till about 12 drinking Chang beer around the camp fire by candle light singing with a guitar and watching the stars, they were amazing, we even got the cake out and everyone sang Happy Birthday. The Engligh lads had even made me a card and a necklace out of water balloons (they couldnt blow them up). It was a really good birthday evening.

We then attempted to sleep but the cockralls of the village had other ideas they were crowing all night so we awoke a little tired the next day.

Again we started the day uphill but our guide assured us there were only 3 uphils to go, so after counting them down the downhil began. A relief you might think, accept it was as steep down as it was up and very slippery, so once again me and Kirsty were at the back of the group slipping our way down to the bottom of these hills, so much so that our guide made us walking sticks out of bamboo which became our best friends. After 3 hours we arrived at the waterfall which was really pretty and cold (very welcome consdering we were dripping). We had lunch and stopped for about 2 hours. Then, thinking we must be close to our final resting place we started trecking again. 2 hours later we finally arrived at our camp. The route was very narrow up and downhil so not too tiring but still 2 hours!!!

We made it and early night and were in bed ny about 9 and slept alot better than the previous night although still not very comfy and we were freezing as we were in a valley.

The final day, Kirstys birthday. By now every muscle in our legs were aching soooo much that we struggled to walk down the steps to the toilet so were very relieved to hear it was only 20 mins of trecking today!! PHEW!! We trecked to the Elephant camp and rode an Elephant, our seamed to be very like us in the sense that despite starting near the front we ended up last and often refused to move without being fed bananas or stopping to eat grass.

After the Elephant we did white water rafting which was much more like rock rafting, the water was sooo low that we just kept getting stuck on rocks and having to jump around to get us off. The water was soo slow that we had to do loads of paddling and the rapids were about a grade 1 if that. It was so tiring having to paddle so much, but hey it was about time our arms did some of the work. Finally we switched to a bamboo raft wich involved us doing nothing but float along the river, it was so nice and relaxing. We stopped for lunch and then headed back to Chiang Mai.

Since trecking we have spent a day by the pool and today we are going to the Sat market and then on a dinner cruise tonight.

Promiser the next update wont be as long.