hi again!! So I got back to Bangkok yesterday morning (Saturday) and am back at the Viengtai Hotel which is good cus I know how to get around from there. Its the next road along from Koh San Road which is where all of the bars, markets are so its in a really good spot. Been here just over 2 weeks already - cant believe how quickly time is going by. I'm having an afternoon by the pool today - I've done so much over the past 2 weeks its nice to have a chilled day. I've booked myself a a tour down south for a week (with Helena and Terri from the tour ive just finished) and we meet with the rest of our new group tonight and go for dinner with them. So the past week since my last blog....On Sunday we travelled to Chiang Rai where we stayed with a thai family - the man was the music teacher from the local school and they had arranged for the local school children to come and play music for us after dinner. it was a really nice evening and we got to have a go on the insturments after the children had finished playing and they showed us how to use them. We all slept in the same room of their house on mattresses on their living room floor - girls down stairs, boys upstairs. Then on Monday morning early, we headed to the bottom of the mountain in farmer trucks to start out 3 day trek. We had the option to pay for porters to carry our back packs, which I gladly did, and we stopped in a village on the way to pick them up. You pay 300 baht for a day (6 pound) and it really is worth it. We started the trek at about 9am and by 9:30 I had blisters from my walking shoes!! We were given bamboo sticks to use to help pull us up the mountain as some parts were really steep...especially on the first day. You literally have to pull yourself up using trees to help at some points! I drank over 3 litres of water and didnt need to pee once - thats how much you sweat!!! at lunchtime on the first day we stopped to eat under a waterfall - pics in my album - and it literally was the most beautiful thing i have ever seen. It was amazing sitting there. the thai family we had stayed with the night before had prepared us lunch - rice and chicken wrapped in a banana leaf. I hardly ate any of mine!! I had stocked up on snacks though....dried banana chips etc so didnt go hungry. We had a full day of treking and then reached our first village to sleep for the night. Most of us had a thai massage in the evening by local village ladies - its good for the muscles and helps to spread money to the local villages as they have hardly anything. We went for a walk around the village and then got a really early night after dinner. Except I woke up at 4am and couldnt get back to sleep until about 6 as we were sleeping in a wooden hut and there was a bat in the roof!! I kept waking Terri up and getting her to scan the hut with her little torch to check it was ok! Quite funny looking back now but at the time I was sooooo scared. Day 2 was a bit shorter in terms of treking but still really really tough...I wish I had filmed us while we were walking cus it was really mentally challenging as well as physically. Sometimes I really felt like i didnt want to go on - but getting to a village at the end of each day was brilliant. The village we stayed at on the second night was the local village of one of the scouts that had been walking with us - local people did some dancing for us in the evening which was cool and a couple of the girls from my group dressed up too and joined in with them. On day 3 we had 2 big hills to climb and then it was literally steep down hill the rest of the way...so steep that you felt like you were going to constantly fall over! Crossing the finishing line was such a fab feeling - one that I wont forget in a hurry. I'm really proud of myself for doing it!

On Thursday, we went to the border of burma (i didnt go across) and went round the markets there and then stopped for lunch. Then we went to the Opium museum and learnt about how local tribes believe opium came about, how its made etc etc. it was quite interesting but I was so tired from treking that I dont think I took it all in. then we went to the golden triangle which is the point at which thailand, burma and laos all meet (pic in my photo album). then i sat in a coffee bar for a while with a bag of ice on my ankle cus I had the worst CANKLES you have ever seen!! It helped with the swelling so I felt better afterwards. At night we went near the night market for dinner and then got a relatively early night. On friday we had a free morning in chiang rai before heading to the train station in the afternoon to catch the night train back to bangkok! The women on the train were really rude this time - they woke us up at about 5:30 on saturday morning to fold our beds away when the train didnt even get into bangkok until 7:30 - i was mad! the first bad mood i have been in so far! Then one of them literally threw my bag off the train (supposedly to be helping me carry it off!) when we got into bangkok - most thai people have been really really helpful and gone out of their way for us but these women were just rude!!!

Yesterday we had a free day in bangkok and there was a HUGE storm in the afternoon - all of the roads flooded....shops were putting sand bags out the front to stop their shops flooding - never seen a storm like it! me and helena had to get a local thai man to help us cross the road as the water was knee height and all the crap from the drain was floating by!! So I had a long shower to get clean straight away and then had a power nap before dinner. Me helena clare michael and charlie then went for a cocktail before meeeting everyone for dinner. then we went back to the hotel to meet everyone for dinner but a couple of people werent quite ready so I sat in a clothes shop watching a bit of the liverpool vs blackburn game with the shops owners who supported liverpool too! Our farewell dinner was at a lovely restuarant and I was lucky enough to have a big tv in front of me so I could watch the rest of the game - great match!! I kept shouting when they scored and everyone was laughing but I was just happy to get to watch it...missing football lots!!

Today is a free day as I said so just been for breakfast and shortly heading back to the hotel and going in the pool. Hope all is well back home with everyone - keep the emails / messages coming - talk to you all soon!!!xxx