Made my way up to Chiang Mai, in the north of Thailand to do 3 days and 2 nights of trekking. Decided to start my trek the morning I arrived, so was pretty shattered. I had planned to do a South trek as I was going to Pai after anyway, but then had signed me up for the northern one. I met Rachel, Erin and Joel (American) and Matt (German) whilst waiting for the bus, and they were doing the north trek, so I stuck with that. Ended up being a pretty good decision!! There was a group of 13 of us, including Tori, Jess and Becky (British) and Maria (Spanish) who they had met at the Airport, there was Muscles Russ (Canadian), Ralf (German), and a British couple Dan and Toni. The first day was pretty hard core - some serious sweating involved - it was pretty much all upwards. It was excellent and the views were immense - we decided the views were def better when you had the achievement sweat to prove it! That night we stayed in one of the hill tribes. We stayed in a large bamboo hut, where we were cooked so much food!! We all stayed up until ridiculous times drinking beer and singing songs with the locals. All the local children came to meet us and performed a dance. Then we all asked them questions one by one so they could practice their English. It was perfect.

The second day was less hardcore trekking, but more of it. We stopped for lunch at a beautiful waterfall and played in that for most the day. I adopted about 10 puppies, but unfortuntately had to give them back! That night was much more chilled out as everyone was pretty sore from the night before. We stayed overnight at the elephant camp, and just sat up talking around the fire.

Third day was elephant riding in the morning, which was massively scary. I was on a elephant with Russ, who was also terrified (he has a genuine reason, I was just being a wimp!!). Our elephant was hilarious - it didn't move at all, and the only time it did move was when we were clsoe to the banana place, and then the water. Then later we did white water rafting and bamboo rafting, both were wicked!! On the bamboo raft, our driver was pushing so hard on the stick that it snapped and he fell in - then cos if this took us the wrong way - we nearly smashed up the whole raft! Tori and I were just chilling on the raft, and I had a real moment of 'I used to have a 9-5pm job - this is my life now!'. Sorry about that dudes, but seriously my life rocks right now!!

We stayed one night in Chiang Mai after that, which is a cool place, although not somewhere I could stay for too long. We went to the night market and my 'arm of tat' continues to increase!! The we went to a very cool place called Warm Up, where we met Om who is basically the most beautiful and lovely girl in the world. She took me, Jess, Tor, Becky and Maria in her car to a club called Dark - we were basically the only Ferrangs in the whole place, but were allowed in free cos we were with her. It was brilliant - the place was huge, and we partied till the early hours when she took us home. Loved her!