Hi Guys,

Daniel here. So I made it up north safely and am now in a place called Chiang Mai. Its a very small town surrounded by mountains and fresh air, the smog is slowly clearing from my system at last and I can actually breath through both nostrels now. I popped out last night and found sancturay in an irish pub that was showing premiership football, do you know how good it was to see some footy from back home?, anyhow I finished off my thai red curry, saw the end of the games and went back to bed, it was a long day!!

My plan here is to possibly do some kind of trek into the jungle for a few days and do something "amazing" that I have just come across, I wont let on yet, you'll all have to wait and see ;-) The journey up from Bangkok took about 10 hours, to be honest it wasnt that bad, AC Bus, some leg room, only downside was that I was the only tourist on it so as you can imagine there wasnt much conversation, just a lot of smiling and nodding. Back in Bangkok, at the time I thought going straight to the bus station and booking a coach ticket was the thing to do (miss out the middle man - the agent) but no that kind of back fired on me as it meant my particular coach was a local one and not one organised by an agent which would have meant it would have been purely backpacker types who spoke english, ha ha, ah well, I know for next time. Im going to try and get my trek sorted today and the 'amazing' thing too so I wont stay on here for long. I will have some photos and more blog on Chiang Mai up on here before I leave town. My plan at the moment is to keep heading north and then make my way across into Laos.

Anyway guys, speak to you all soon.

Daniel.

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Hello peeps, me again. So yeah that amazing thing I said I was going to do? I didnt! It was going to be going to see tigers at this place out of town, u get to go in with them etc etc, I thought it was going to be like the lion encounter in africa, I couldnt be more wrong. They seem to be mis treated and kept in tiny cages and drugged when people come in to have a photo taken with them, kind of sick if you ask me, so yeah, so much for the amazing thing huh! Anyway my stay in Chiang Mai has been nice, its very quiet here, almost to quiet. I booked the next leg of my trip, im heading up to the border town on the 29th as part of a 3 day package to get me into Laos (I hope without mishap). The bus is a tourist one so some english speaking people at last!! I should get into Laos within a day then im on a 2 day boat trip down the Mekong river, destination Luang Prabang. Here im due to stay 3 nights at a hostel sharing a room with 5 other hobos like myself, should be fun.

Anyway, I shall leave it there for now. Hope your all well

Daniel.