I left Lauren in Bangkok to catch her flight while i travelled up to Chiang Mai. I had about five days to spend there before heading to Laos. I stayed in a small guest house called Kavil which was recommend by the couple we met in Khao Sok.

The following day i was up very early to attend a Thai cooking school, we were taken to the market first. We were then driven out to a farm where the cooking school was based, it was a pretty setting. The school grow all their own ingredients on site and we walked around the grounds sampling the fruit and vegetables. We each had our own cooking station, i first learnt how to make Thai green curry paste which i used to make the curry, which was lovely. My 2nd dish was Tom yam with shrimps one of my favourites, followed by chicken with cashew nuts. We then stopped for lunch which was our three courses we had prepared very filling. Then it was back in the kitchen to make pad thai which didn't taste as good as the one i had in Bangkok. Last of all was mango with sticky rice, which i didn't really want to eat as it looked like rice pudding but was actually lovely. One of the people on my cooking course works at ING in Holland, small world.

I was then up early again to go trekking in the mountains for a few days. My group was all from Argentina and all chain smokers. We started off rafting down the river which would have been nice and relaxing if our Thai guide hadn't have kept trying to make us sink, he thought he was so funny. We then started our walk which was hard work as it was all up hill and the sun was so hot. After two hours we arrived at a waterfall where we had a swim and then started walking again. We arrived at our tribal village in the early evening. I really wanted a hot shower after all the walking but when i saw our bathroom i changed my mind. It was a small hut with a hose pipe and a bucket to wash with next to a hole in the ground which was the toilet. If you think this is bad look at my photo of my bed, you wont believe i stayed there! That evening we had dinner (rice) and played games with the local children.

I woke up with such back ache and in need of a massage and a hot shower. We started our walk after breakfast to a river, which was really dangerous as the current was so strong. One of the boys got pulled along and hit the rocks. Once he saved himself on a branch we continued our walk for a few hours until we reached the elephants. The rest of the trek was on the elephants which was my favourite part of the trip.

I'm now off for a well earned massage!