We spent a couple of days on a slow boat travelling along the Mekong River from Luang Prabang in Laos to Huay Xai on the border with Thailand. The first night we stayed in the village of Pakbeng, where we were followed by local drug dealers trying to sell us stuff! The next night in Huay Xai we found a nice little bar with a darts board to hang out in. There was some pretty scenery along the way during the daytime. When we went to make the final river crossing at the border, there was torrential rain and the river was flooded. We were in one little motor boat and our backpacks were in another. One boat died out halfway across the river and the other had to drag it across. All the while, the rain was rapidly filling up the boats with water - it was frightening and I had visions of us on the news - tourists drowning in the floods!

Once safely in Thailand, we took a bus to the city of Chiang Mai in the north of the country. For our last group outing with our trip leader Kate, we went to the Riverside restaurant, which I really enjoyed - we sat outside by an artificial waterfall, they served great food and, bizarrely, Pimms was a speciality on the drinks menu. Later in the evening we moved inside to watch the two live bands - one covered classic rock songs and the other covered modern pop songs and, although all the singers were Thai, their impersonations of everything from Phil Collins to Deep Purple to Queen were uncanny. At closing time we moved on to Chiang Mai's premier club, Bubbles, which promised funky house and trance music but it felt more like a school disco!

The following night I said goodbye to the guys I'd been travelling with through Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos and met a new group with which I would spend the next few days trekking through the jungle and visiting hilltribe villages. After a quick run around the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar, we all headed back to the Riverside to watch the bands again because we loved them so much the night before - they didn't disappoint!

On our way to begin the hilltribe trek we stopped to visit the Mork Fa waterfall - it was very tall and we could stand under it but the water fell with such force that it felt a bit like being beaten up!

When we arrived at the trek starting point our guide, Mr Doedee, painted our shoes with some sort of home-made leech repellent. We encountered a lot of leeches along the way - they were much smaller than I imagined. I found several on my shoes and socks but luckily none of the little blighters made it through to my skin - I was very glad of my walking boots! I still managed to get bitten by insects countless times and my legs are now an itchy mess of cuts and bites.

It took about four hours to walk to the first village. Doedee and a trainee guide that also joined us, Jaidee, were both natives of the hilltribe villages and they knew a great deal about the plants and animals so they would often stop to show us interesting things along the way.

First priority when we arrived at the village was getting out of our muddy clothes and having a shower - which meant donning a sarong and heading to the river with a bar of soap! It was so cold but surprisingly pleasant.

Doedee and Jaidee had made us nervous with talk of eating monkeys and squirrels but in fact they made us fantastic breakfasts, lunches and dinners - not traditional hilltribe food but probably much more tasty. I ate something which they said was squirrel but there was so much herbs and chilli on it I couldn't tell what it was so I'm not convinced.

We slept in wooden houses on stilts which seemed to be purpose-built for tourists coming to the village - there was nothing inside but thin mattresses with mosquito nets over them.

After dinner on the first evening Doedee entertained us with lots of magic tricks and puzzles. There was a local guy, drunk as a skunk on Thai whiskey, who wanted to join in and show us his buffalo puzzle - it was hilarious watching him trying to convey the story and reacting when we guessed the wrong answer.

The next day we walked three or four hours to an elephant camp where we had lunch and watched the mahouts washing the elephants in the river before we climbed on and rode the elephants for about and hour and a half up and down through the narrow paths of the jungle and through small rivers. It was fun and the scenery along the way was great but the steeper parts were scary because there was little holding me into my seat!

After the elephant riding we walked a bit further to the village where we would stay the night. There was a big primary school there that was funded by the Princess of Thailand (apparently the government doesn't provide any free schooling and the hilltribe children couldn't afford to go to school otherwise). The children seemed to be on a break and were all outside running around - we played with them for a while and tried to talk to them but they don't speak English or Thai, their first language is a hilltribe dialect (which I think is closer to Burmese than Thai).

We couldn't wash in the river at this village so instead had to go the outhouses where the (squat) toilets were located and use a bucket to scoop cold water from a drum to pour over ourselves. When I was showered and changed and feeling nice and clean, Jaidee proposed going to play football with the locals. I couldn't resist so ended up going and getting muddy and sweaty all over again and had to come back and repeat that pleasant shower experience!

The football game was a lot of fun - we played on the raggedy pitch at the school, some parts of the field had no grass, just dry earth and rocks, while other parts were like a swamp and we were slipping and sliding in the mud. We started off as five-a-side, us versus a few guys from the village, some of which, worringly, were wearing studs, while we were in flip-flops or bare feet. As we were playing, boys from the school kept coming and joining in, some for our team and some for the other side, and they kept changing their shirts and changing sides so we ended up with a crowd of people and no idea who was on our team and who wasn't!

After dinner in the evening, Doedee and Jaidee sang some songs and Doedee presented us each with a little cup that he had been painstakingly carving from bamboo throughout the day. He'd written our names on our individual cups - very sweet, except mine said 'Clare'! We stayed up late playing cards and christened the cups with Samsong (Thai alcohol).

The following day we took bamboo rafts back along the river towards Chiang Mai, as an alternative to trekking. I hadn't done bamboo rafting before and didn't really know what to expect - I thought we would actually be doing something but in fact we just sat on the rafts (which were very uncomfortable - a row of bamboo sticks tied together), with our bums, hands and feet getting continually colder and wetter, for three hours. Jaidee was steering our raft and thought it was funny to regularly splash us with water - I didn't think so... There were a few points where we went through rapids and it was briefly exciting but on the whole it wasn't much fun, I would rather have had the six-hour trek back!

As soon as we returned to Chiang Mai from the hills I had a Thai massage to unwind. We were all looking forward to a night on the town so were disappointed when we arrived at the Riverside (where else?) to find a sign that said 'Dear Customers, due to the Queen's birth day we will not serve alcoholic beverages to night, sorry for any inconvenience', the place was empty and there were no bands. However, after dinner we went next door to Good View which clearly wasn't observing the Queens' birthday and was packed. We stayed there until closing time and then crammed seven people plus a driver into a tuk tuk to head over to the 24-hour Burger King!

The overnight train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok was surprisingly comfy and the service was great compared to the (many many) trains I've been on elsewhere but it required a lot of manpower which seemed unnecessary - an attendant came around with a menu and I could choose from a range of set meals and choose what time I wanted it served to me in my seat. The attendants set up a table for me to eat and, when I wanted to go to bed, they came back and turned the seats into beds and made them up.