25.06.05 Arrived in Chiang Mai (finally), absolute mission of a journey! It's cool here. Loads of tuk tuks and a big canal surrounds the main town in a square. Han & I had a quick look around, then in the evening, the 3 of us took a tuk tuk to the night market - which was awesome! Picked up a few souvenirs, although I'm not sure I've got the hang of bartering yet!! 26.06.05 Today we got up early for our Batik lesson. The teacher - Ann - was really nice. We got to learn the basic techniques and decorated a hanky and a bag! It was great :) In the late afternoon, we headed down the road to the Sunday market. Really impressive compared to the night market - much bigger and even cheaper! Bought loads! 27.06.05 Another early start today - we had our 'trek' planned today! We got picked up in a jeep thing and drove the hour it takes up to the hills. Our first stop was to see a small hill tribe - surrounded by rice fields. Our next stop - the elephant ride! It was awesome enough to see them up close! We climbed onto a platform to get on the seat on the back of the elephant! It was really scary as it was quite like riding a horse and much higher up!! We somehow managed to navigate forests and narrow paths and muddy slopes and even a river! It was great! And a baby elephant followed us the whole way. It was so funny when he helped himself to a t-shirt hanging on someone's washing line and started eating it!! Got drenched in the rain, but it was fun :) We had some rice for lunch, then visited another, bigger, hilltribe. The ladies were making scarves with big weaves and they told us it took them a whole week to make one. Last stop for the day was a bamboo raft ride! A crazy transport which looked like it was about to fall apart! But we drifted down a stream and I even got to steer with a cane from the back! In the evening, we managed to find the energy to go to the night market again! And I picked up my last few bargains from Chiang Mai.