Hi everyone!Hope you're all OK!Thanks for all of your messages. xChaira and Joel - can't wait to see you guys either!Very excited about NYE and some "proper" food!Jo, Slips and Molly - good luck with the potty training and thanks for the photo. XWin and Nige - stop bickering!And Win, don't be fooled - he's only creative with a little help…. Huddy/Gez - nice to see the Ulverston posse being represented!Cheers.Nanna Net - don't worry, we have managed to avoid the big mouse so far!Jamie - we're working on your requests. We have the monkey called Dave in our backpacks but Llamas are proving a little more difficult.Mountain goat?Debs - I am coping surprisingly well without my heels.How's the little man? Mark and Ang - thanks for the message.Can't wait to see you guys either.Glad the wedding went well.I have had a look at the pictures - you both looked great. Gutted we weren't there! Looking forward to seeing some more pics and hearing all about it properly.How was the honeymoon?Aunty Teresa - thanks for all of your messages.I will email properly as soon as I get chance.How was good old London?We arrived in Chiang Mai on the sleeper train from Bangkok a day later than planned due to a train strike which no-one bothered to tell us about when we booked our tickets.That was a bit rubbish, but on the up side, there were no second class seats available the next day so we had to pay twice as much to travel first class.Now this was hardly first class by Mr Branson's standards, but for what worked out to be about 19 quid each it was pretty good.We had our own air-conditioned compartment with bunk beds and we had a waitress who possibly earned commission on the number of alcoholic drinks she sold as all we heard until lights out was, "beer, beer, you want more beer?".Anyway, we got to Chiang Mai about 8 o'clock in the morning, by which time Stu had full on man flu and thought his days were numbered.So we had a lazy morning and then went for our first Thai massage, or at least I did - Stu being the girl that he is opted for the soft-arse oil massage .This ended up being a test of Stu's self-control as where I got the old boot who contorted me into all kinds of ridiculous positions, he got the young Miss Thailand giving him a nice little rub down with aromatherapy oils - apparently his efforts not to break wind (amongst other things??!!) spoilt his enjoyment somewhat!We actually didn't do much during our first 3 days in Chiang Mai due to Stu having man flu and the fact that it rained relentlessly for 2 days solid. Luckily Chiang Mai is a pretty chilled out place with lots of bars and restaurants so Stu took the whisky route to recovery (it costs about a quid for half a bottle) and we got pretty drunk every night until he felt better (mostly with some nice Irish people that we kept bumping into - it's quite weird bumping into people in Chiang Mai that you met in Bangkok).We then went on a 2 day/1 night trek, which we waited to do until Stuart felt better but then I got sick the night before.Rubbish!I fought through it though, with almost no moaning whatsoever!?!We started off the trek with an elephant ride which we didn't really want to do but was part of the trip so we had to.And then we visited a couple of "authentic" hill tribe villages which were about as authentic as the Burberry which adorns the streets of East London.These "villages" consisted of a few huts, outside which sat long-neck women and girls with necks which have been stretched 30cm or more by a column of brass rings which they start wearing when they're about 6 years old, adding rings every couple of years until they're 16.This was quite fascinating to see (you wouldn't believe how heavy these rings are) but it seemed a bit wrong - like a human zoo with these people just sat there whilst snap-happy tourists had they're pictures taken with them.Anyway, we then did a 6 hour trek in the jungle which was pretty tough, especially as I was full of a cold and most of the trek was up hill.The scenery was amazing though and there was a good sense of achievement at the end of it.Stu thinks he's had enough jungle experience now to join the SAS and instead of "I want to be a rock star" the new line is, "I'm off to Burma to train with the special forces".We then stopped overnight in a tiny village in the middle of the jungle which was made up of tree houses and was home to some of the biggest spiders you have ever seen in your whole life.It was hideous!Now, I know I'm meant to say that it was fantastic and a great experience but in all honesty I never want to stay overnight in the jungle again… not ever!I hated it!It was cold, grimy (unless you wanted a freezing cold shower with aforementioned 8 legged beasts - I opted to smell!), we had to share a bloody tree house with 8 other people we didn't know (most of whom were boring!) and had to sleep on the floor, I was totally dehydrated as I didn't drink any water in order to minimise the number of visits to the beast-infested toilet and then when we finally did get to sleep a bloody rooster started squawking at 5 o'clock and didn't shut up for about 2 hours!Horrendous.The next day was actually quite good, though - I think maybe because I was so excited about getting back to our nice clean hostel that night.We trekked for about an hour and a half in the morning and then went white-water rafting in the afternoon.We seemed to spend quite a lot of time stuck on rocks and trying to claim back a lost oar, but it was really cool.We had planned on travelling to Laos the next day but couldn't get a seat on the bus/boat trip so we had to delay it until the day after.This was a bit of shame as we had been in Chiang Mai for 5 days and were ready to move on really, but we made the most of our last day and hired a scooter which we drove up Doi Suthep mountain to visit the temple at the top (Wat Phra That Doi Suthep - North Thailand's holiest shrine) and enjoyed the beautiful weather and the view of Chiang Mai - very nice indeed!And that was Chang Mai.We will be spending our next two days travelling by bus and boat to Laos.xxx