Organised chaos is how I'd describe Thai transport services.. my word they know how to make things difficult!

I arrived at the Hua Lampong Train Station in Bangkok an hour or so before my bus was due to depart for Chiang Mai so I could grab myself a bite to eat and get settled. As I found out from my previous two days in Bangkok, there's no such thing as feeling settled or comfortable. The train station was an absolute mess.. hardly any space to move around in with all different warps of life led on newspaper on the floor and slumped against the walls in the awful heat. Sweating is an understatement.. just what you need before a 10 hour bus journey!

I moved upstairs to get away from the crowd and sat in a Thai cafe which overlooked the carnage. I ordered some food.. which was superb but half way through eating my meal the whole station suddenly stood up.. I looked up in awe thinking 'what the.....?' I just sat there looking around but after a few seconds people started staring at me with dead eyes.. so I stood up too. Only then did I realise that some orchestral music was playing over the speaker system which must have been the Thai national anthem. How dare they interrupt me whilst I'm eating.. don't they know what I'm like with food?! ;) Apparently if the national anthem is played anywhere in a public place you must stop what you are doing and respect it!

After a delay of a good half hour the organisers got there act together and led a dozen of us out the station to the bus.. not the actual bus, a minibus to the bus.. Jeeeez! After another 15 minutes or so we arrived at the 'actual bus' but first I had to get another ticket for whatever the reason before eventually being led around the corner to board the bus.. finally! Or what i thought finally.. it was 7.45pm and the bus wasn't setting off till 8.30pm.. absolute farse!

From the outside the bus looked pretty decent, however the inside looked like a dodgy Indian restaurant with pink frilly curtains everywhere. As long as the air-con worked, the seats reclined and it got me there in one piece then I wasn't too bothered.. and it did exactly that. The journey passed by without any problem.. I had a good natter with an English lad called Sam who was sat next to me which passed quite a bit of the time and I managed to get some sleep in the almost horizontal reclining seats. The Thai film they put on for us didn't go down well with no-one understanding what was going on, nor did the stop at 12.30am when everyone was asleep.. we were given a free dinner at a dodgy service station. Not one to pass up the offer of food I thought I'd give it a try regardless of the time.. this was not food though!! I don't know what it was but it could only be described as scrappy bits of pork mixed with glue and dirty water.. one mouthful and that was it for me! I took it straight back and got back on the bus with a nasty taste in my mouth.. yuk!!

We arrived to a bright sunny morning in Chiang Mai at 5.30am. I grabbed my bag and sought about getting a taxi to the guest house where I'd hoped they'd honour my booking from the last minute email I had sent the previous day.

I felt at ease during the short taxi journey to the guest house.. Chiang Mai was much more forgiving and relaxed with still plenty going on, but a friendlier, comfortable environment compared with that of Bangkok. Thankfully the guest house had honoured my booking and I checked into my room where I drew a sigh of relief after the journey and the onslaught of Bangkok over the previous few days.

The guest house was situated in the 'old city' which is surrounded by a moat.. I was advised to stay here by someone i met in Singapore so to get a better feel of Chiang Mai and I'm glad I did. Small intricate streets off the busier roads gave a Venetian feel to the surroundings. The 'new city' surrounds two sides of the moat and both cities are accessible to each other.

I was tired but I didn't bother going to sleep. After chilling for a while I had some breakfast and then headed out to explore the 'old city' and a few of it's temples.. the oldest ageing back to the early 1200's. I located a few of them on the map, including the oldest one and set off on a mission.

The temples were pretty impressive.. epic architecture and a super attention to detail in their design, with huge gold Buddha's at the forefront of everything but I didn't spend no more than 5 minutes in each. They all looked pretty much the same just some are bigger than others.. historians would probably tell you different but hey.. I'm just a lad from Blackburn, what do I know! :)

Starting to tire under the heat I came back to the guest house to rest and work out what I was going to do with my day tomorrow. After looking through the brochures and leaflets available at reception I decided to book onto 'The Flight of the Gibbon' tour.. a zip-wire canopy tour through the 1500 year old rainforest outside of Chiang Mai.

The only down side to it was that I'd be getting picked up at 6.30am when I really could have done with catching up on some sleep. Ah well, no rest for the wicked as they say.

I went about getting a bite to eat for my tea. I'd read about a nice, small restaurant called Bon Kitchen just a few minutes walk out of the old city. It was just a basic diner but my was the food good.. Indian spiced chicken pitta and a homemade flatbread pizza filled me up nicely.. delicious!

I didn't do much for the rest of the evening.. I got to my room and crashed hoping to get a decent sleep before being picked up in the morning at 6.30am for the tour.

I slept well that night but I really could have done with a few more hours. The minibus picked me up bang on 6.30am and then went on to pick up some other passengers in the area before driving an hour up into the rainforests. I was still very tired and kept nodding off for most of the journey.

We arrived at the zip-wire base where we had a short briefing, fitted our harnesses and helmets and jumped straight back in the minibus to take us to the start of the course. I had an English family with me in my group along with a couple of American girls and a local Thai lady who were all very friendly.

We were very high up in the rainforest as we approached the first station and I wasn't nervous at all.. think I've developed a taste for all these daring 'high octane' activities I keep booking myself on to. We had two local guides with us throughout the tour who were great fun and good at what they do.

I fearlessly jumped onto the first couple of zips enjoying the thrill of being so high up and the speed I travelled at.. certainly got the adrenalin going! After another couple of zips we had to climb further up the rainforest to the next station.. all I could see were people flying overhead at a ridiculous height hearing random screams in the process. I wondered what was in store..

On the way up we saw a family of Gibbons swinging in the massive trees so we stopped to watch and take a breather. We carried on up to the station where all the screams were coming from.. and there it was.. the longest zip-wire in Thailand, and one of the highest!! We were pretty much above the whole of the rainforest and the views were amazing. I couldn't wait for my turn, it looked really fast and I couldn't even see the other end.

It came to my turn and I confidently jumped off the station.. WHHHOOOAAAHHH!!! awesome raw speed took me down the wire.. the views above the rainforest were stunning, I couldn't even see the ground I was that high up. What a huge rush!! It took a while to get to the other end where a break and a safety net cushioned my momentum.. I still hit it with some force though. Loved it!

We moved onto the next few zips which didn't match the previous one.. I wanted that rush back but wasn't sure whether I'd get it again.. but I did, probably even more so!

This particular zip was only short but seemed different than all the others.. there was a big climbing net at the opposite end but no station to land on. The wire would this time attach to the back of the harness instead of the front which meant there was nothing to keep hold of when jumping off the station.. kind of like a bungy jump but into a mass of trees!

When trying to jump your body's natural instinct is to stop you from going over the edge which is what happened the first couple of times I tried to jump. I just went for it on my third attempt.. jumping with my arms out infront of me freefalling for literally a second or so but it was a huge buzz, different from the one I had gotten earlier but it left my heart in my mouth as I appeared to be jumping down to the bottom of the rainforest. The harness did it's thing and carried me to the big net at the opposite end which I had to climb to get up to the station. Great fun!

There were several other stations which we passed through including two steep abseiling wires that took us to the bottom of the rainforest where the finish was. It took around 3 hours to complete the course but it felt much shorter than that it passed so quickly.

We visited a waterfall on the way back to the base and then the organisers laid on a nice Thai lunch before taking us all back to our accommodation.. again I was nodding off in the minibus on the way back. Really enjoyed the tour!

It was mid-afternoon and I was still tired.. I could have done with a nap but I had to sort out my next move as I planned on leaving the next day. I wanted to visit some of the islands in the south for some relaxation and tranquility so with that in mind I had a look at the feasibility of it all.

After a few hours I managed to work out the rest of my travels till my flight home on the 24th July so here goes:
I wanted to get to Koh Samui, an island off the southern eastern coast of Thailand. The options I had were a one stop flight straight to the island, or two marathon bus journeys over two days via Bangkok, or a flight to Bangkok then an overnight bus and ferry to the island.

The flight would have been ideal but it was expensive and the money saved using the other two options would help pay for my accommodation for the rest of the time I'm in Thailand. This mean't I'd have to reluctantly stop over in Bangkok at some point :( There was no way I was going to do two marathon bus journeys over two days so I booked a flight for the morning from Chiang Mai to Bangkok at 7.10am.. hardly any sleep again! Then I'd have to stay in Bangkok till 6pm the same day for a bus/ferry combination which will get me to Koh Samui at 10am on the 11th July. Not ideal at all but I thought I would persevere since the prize of a bungalow on a quiet lush beach in the sun for 4 days was waiting for me at the other end.

I also booked a flight from Koh Samui to Phuket on the 15th July where I plan to spend five nights, two on Koh Phi Phi island. I could have made the short ferry trip from Koh Samui over to Koh Pha Ngan for the famous Full Moon Party on Sunday 17th July but I'm really not bothered about it especially with having bigger fish to fry in Ibiza later this summer. Koh Tao, another island close to Koh Samui, is somewhere I intended on visiting on my travels.. famous for it's fantastic 'diving' shorelines but I'm not going to get round to it.

I have a flight booked on Wednesday 20th July from Phuket over to Bali again where I will stay for four nights in either Sanur or Seminyak before heading home on the 24th July.

So glad I've got it all sorted now.. it's a massive weight off my shoulders. All I need to do now is book accommodation in each of the remaining places.

A heavy thunderstorm restricted me to my guest house room after I had sorted everything out. I was hungry as usual so I headed out that evening once the rain had passed. I decided to go back to the Bon Kitchen restaurant again since it was so good the previous night and it didn't disappoint. I came back to my room just before 9pm to get my stuff together and try and get a decent sleep before having to be up for 5am for my flight as 7.10am.

I know tomorrow is going to be a very tying day testing my patience and mental stamina to the max with the early start, the hanging around for half a day in the dirty dump known as Bangkok followed by a 16 hour bus/ferry journey!!

Wish me luck :)

xx