So as robert burns said 'Plans of mice and men aft gan aglade' well what plans do mice make?? and how did he know they often went wrong, did he listen to mice planning to steal cheese, then watch them return ten minutes later with washing powder saying 'dam my plans aft gan aglade!'

Anyway we were picked up by our guide, named Good, on time and taken with three german girls (Larua, Lotty and Leana, creative them germans) two english girls (catherine and stevie) and an irish girl (danielle) to meet a french guy (sam) and two canadian girls (alexandra, kelsey) at a butterfly and orchid farm before we set off in to the jungle. (you may have noticed there were a few more girls to boys, 4.5 women to every man, them are odds i like). We were fed before being taken on an 'elephant tour' which we expected to go some where, say from one village to another, not round in a big loop, non the less this all be it short journey reminded both of us why we should not go elephant trecking, being small fragile people (yes as per ussual we were the biggest couple) we got stuck with the giant male elephant, (like any of these massive creatures care if they get the 150killos of forigeners) whom we had been told to buy a hand of bananas for, we got on and the elephant plodded off, without its driver!! Sitting fourteen feet in the air with no driver and an elephant that was demanding bananas made for a bum twitchy start to the ride, the mahoot then whisteled and the giant beast plodded over to a mound of earth where he jumped on to its head and we began our 'tour' in ernest. The elephant on which we were riding, had a cold, so we got sneezed on, which is like some one spraying a mouthfull of water at you, we were sneezed on three times.

After the troops had mounted up we set of to the river, down a fourty five degree hill, with no bar or rope to stop us falling out of the basket, by the time we reached the river, we felt like we had been hanging from monkey bars, half way down the trail our elephant decided that 45 degrees wasn't enought and tried to go off the vertical edge, much to the shock of the mahoot and the fear of us, we got to the river to be soaked by our giant sneezing water gun, not fun. The treck then slowed down whilst the mahoots dismounted to take pics of their passangers, whilst this gave some nice pics, it was far from trecking, the beasts then lumbered up a much less steep incline to take us back to the start point. Not what we had expected but still that was enough for us.

After washing two liters of elephant snot from our arms and faces, we set off on our treck into the jungle, which we had been warned was a three hour treck , not a walk, we thought ace a jungle treck what fun, and after spotting a wild elephant things were looking good, two hours later i was at the side of a river ringing sweat out of my vest top, (it looked like it had just come out of the wash, it was gross) after three grulling hours of painfully slow walking, we finaly made it to the laho tribe, where we would spend the night, after a quick shower we were ready for the first cold beer of the day, we were met by a gaggle of local woman selling beads, trinkets and massages, where we were given a local cigar which the refussal of is bad manners, (before it was lit i called over to good and asked what the hell i was being given to smoke, his reply was "no tabaco no high, just....leaf. that was a huge a releif to be told) After a fantastic meal of yellow curry we settled in for an evening of singing western songs acompanied by good on guitar, and we even learnt the start of a thai song (which once you start you cant get it out of your head) all of this was helped with the odd beer or two.

After a breakfast of eggs toast and coffee we were told we had the choice of routes, either the hard route up the mountain, or the easy route along the path, both lead to the same place, seven of the girls went the easy way (one of them being hev), sam, kelsey ,alexandra and myself went for the 'hard' route, we went at such a crazy pace i thought we would beat the others to the village despite one route taking an hour and the other taking two! The pace slowed at the top for our non english speaking guide to show us plants and chop jungle fruits down for us to taste, we made it to the village ten minutes after the easy group. We were given time enough in the village to pull out a HULK flying saucer and entertain the local kids, they were so much fun we had to leave it there. A ten minute walk from the village led us to our first waterfall of the day, where our lunch was prepared in bamboo bowls whilst we swam in the refreshingly cool water , a twenty minute walk after lunch took us to the second waterfall where we stayed for a swim and a sun bathe (except hev and i who spent the whole time trying to dig a piece of stone splinter out of my foot) The next waterfall took thirty minutes to reach, which was the best shower i have had since we left home, it was awesome, from here we went along the river for about two k's which lead to our camp for the night, again after showers and a quick compertition between good, sam, hev and i of who can hit a bottle with a catapult (which i lost miserably) we were served another fantastic meal of curry and fried cucumber. In the evening a fire was lit and the gang gathered round for another singing session, which was invaded by the camp of lads from the next village down, (six lads, all from england had spotted nine girls and decided our camp looked better than theres) they stayed round for a bit of a chat and a sing, then they ran out of beer, the girls weren't throwing themselves at them so they left, most of the crowd had gone to bed leaving, the germans the french, good and us sitting drinking our whiskey watching giant spiders and talking to the wee hours of the morning.

Breakfast was served at ten, egg and toast again, with strong coffee, my treat for being up early was to share a shot of rice whiskey with good, whiskey and coffee is the breakfast of legends, sadly most of them are dead due to there habbit of having whiskey and coffee for breakfast, the walk to the pick up truck was diserpointing to everyone, we wanted to walk (this is the start of jungle maddness aparantly) good told us it was a lazy start and a pick up, or an early start and a walk, the pick up was the lesser of two evils. The rafting center kitted us out with our safety gear, gave us our safty talk, then sent us on our way down the river, which was a nice way to spend an hour. The rubber raft was left behind as we climbed on board a bamboo raft, or bamboo submarine as good had described it, being the largest (therefore the strongest??) male i was put in charge of our six man team, within two minutes i had hit a big rock and got the dam thing stuck, everyone off and we tried again, after five minutes i was rocking the river with my own stearing style, my crew were a little unsure, but we didn't hit any more rocks (at least not ones i couldn't get us back off), we were crusing when laura asked if she could try being captain, "of course" i jumped into the river leaving the raft floating with larua in charge, i then climbed back on board to become a bad influence to the rest of the crew, we all piled to the left, larua struggled on the right, we all piled to the right, larua almost fell in with her efforts to get over to the left, we all pilled to the back and larua shot into the air at this point she realised it was her crew and not her that was now guiding the raft. The tour ended with a pad thai lunch as everyone pass round there e-mail, facebook or mobile details all with promises to stay in touch.

so that was our jungle trip, next time ill tell you about the tigers, pai and our two day trecking two day rafting tour, but for now ive waffled on long enough.

'Last night darth vader came down from the planet vulcan and told me, if i didn't take lorraine out he would melt my brain'

love you all the shoe string two