Yo!

Been having a brilliant couple of weeks, Thailand is amazing!

We finished off in Phi Phi after the giant waterfight which was so much fun. We woke up and went out for breakfast and as soon as everyone sees you're dry you're massively attacked and soaked to the bone! It continued ALL day, but was so good. Everyone was so happy...locals and tourists celebrating together with buckets of water and water pistols, throwing flour and babypowder and rubbing paint all over your face.

We left the next day for Bangkok, and arrived after a gruelling 11 hour overnight bus journey at 6am smack bang in the town centre. We soon hopped in a taxi and got to Fizz's contacts lovely apartment...2 double beds and ensuite, huge tv, internet and best of all..AIR CON! We're no longer used to such a luxury! We were in Bangkok to dump our big backpacks and so the girls can get their Indian Visas. We had a chilled 3 nights there, with John buying us lunch (without us knowing!) his maid took us out for a foot massage (which also includes hands, arms, head, and back!), we went out for a posh dinner...all sorts! It was so nice to use a proper shower too and not one so cramped that you can poo and wash at the same time.

Our next stop was Chiang Mai, which was another long bus journey. We arrived at 9pm and went out for an explore (sunday night markets are amazing!) and booked a trek at midnight that night for the next morning! We're so low on time now we're desparate not to waste a day.

So early start the next morning after a suprisingly good sleep at an interesting guesthouse (plug sockets you can't reach and an unmaid bed! Would you believe such a thing! Fizz and I banished Olivia to the 'scary bed'), and jumped in a van with Joe, a man. He took us to get breakfast, because he was lovely, at a petrol station. We all ate together and headed off to start our really cool jam-packed tour. It started with....a visit to an ORCHID AND BUTTERFLY FARM. Bloody brilliant. We politely looked around but after mocking it a bit we were so bored we went back and sat in the car. We drove to the base camp place to start the trek, along the way picking up 2 more guys who we would be spending the next 2 days with. They were Nicholas and Joe, from France. I was nervous to start the trek, as I knew nothing about it. APPARENTLY, we were climbing a mountain. FAN-BLOODY-TASTIC! Anyone who knows me well will know that I have an absolute hatred for walking and wouldn't understand why I paid to do such a thing (peer pressure). So...IT BEGAN!

Started off fine, we met Tom, our tour guide (who found out we were from England and kept putting on a dogey cockney accent), who gave us our lunch to carry and we were on our way. I was thinking 'great! this is fine! So much easier than the volcano I climbed!'. After an hour we were at a waterfall, where we ate our lunch of salty, salty noodles and cooled off in the cold water. The news was then broken that the rest of the 2-3hour walk was very steep. Yay. I whacked on my iPod for motivation and did my best not to get left behind. Luckily, we took it fairly slow unlike the bloody volcano when everyone was in such a rush to catch the sunset. The breaks were well needed...I was soon at the back taking my sweet time whilst Fizz and Olivia, the machines, practically ran up the mountain. It was a relief when the village we were staying in that night was pointed out...looked so close! It was coming to an end! Tom said it would take an hour. ONE HOUR!! He either was joking or had bad sense of time because 20 minutes later we were sat in our cute bamboo hut looking over the view of the mountain.

We were shown to our bedroom, made up of about 12 beds (mattresses on the floor) with mozzie nets hanging over them. It looked so cool! Although i did initially think they were hammocks which was embarrassing. Thank god Fizz notified me before i hopped on the broke the unsuspecting, delicate netting. Us girls treated ourselves to a massage...which was really relaxing, even if the ladies pretty much just rubbed us and it HURT sometimes. We watched the sunset on our bamboo veranda type thing, and ate a nice dinner of potato coconut curry or something. The candles and speakers were then whacked out and we all just chilled and chatted all night long! It was so surreal and we knew how jealous everyone would be at home.

The sleep was again, suprisingly comfortable! We woke around 8am the next morning to breakfast ready for us...("Cuppla slices of toast and a boiled egg...perfect way to start a Northern morning!")...and got ready for the trek down the mountain. I was slightly more positive, and I should have been, because the walk down was 10 times easier for me. Luckily for me, Olivia hates walking downhill...which I find perculiar...and we were all falling over and sliding down...I came away with a very brown bum and a nice big scrape on my leg...(SCREW YOU ROCKS). We stopped for our 'shower' at the waterfall before the swarms of tourists arrived, and we quickly left. We walked for another hour or so...walking past all the different villages which was cool...UNTILL we saw a cute baby playing in a bowl of water; 'AWWW!' Said Fizz and I. 'How cute!'. Next thing we know, this devil baby pulls out a HUGE butchers knife and holds his new toy up to us, with his cute baby smile..'AHHH! CAREFUL!' Luckily Mum soon came out and calmly took it off him...the weirdest thing I have EVER seen.

We soon arrived at the base camp for our next activity...WHITE WATER RAFTING!!! Sounds cool and exciting doesn't it?!! Well, it would have been if their had been more thatn 2 inches of water and no rocks to get stuck on. I'll leave that at that.

Bamboo rafting was next, which was heaps of fun. So relaxing just lying on the bamboo along the calm river, soaking up the BOILING rays (it's like 40degrees here). Then we stopped and had lunch.

We hopped in the truck and we were driven (by Joe again) to the ELEPHANT JUMBO CAMP! We walked through rice fields to the camp, no elephants to be seen though. After 5 minutes we see the elephant men riding the elephants down into the water where we all stripped off and jumped in with them! There was a Mama, Dad and teenage elephant. We grabbed our buckets and scrubber brushes and gave them a good wash. They are so friendly and the baby kept putting it's trunk out (obviously searching for food)...and they kiss you! Well suck, like a hoover! So cute. Fizz, Olivia and I were then led off to get ready for our elephant ride. We sat on those rickety, probably unstable seats on top of the elephant (well, the majority of the ride olivia was on the neck riding it herself!) and it was quite scary. Our elephant, the Dad, was pretty pissed off I think. All he wanted to do was eat and kept spitting out of his trunk, and at one point did his trumpet thing. We were also going downhill at the end, and if it wasn't for the very very safe (?!) chain they have going across you, (and the fact that I was holding on for dear life) I probably would have fallen out. Fizz was off on her own elephant, riding it, shouting all the wrong commands which was hilarious.

And that was the end of that day! So fun.

The next day, Olivia and Fizz went off for their evening cooking course and because I have absolutely no interest in food other than mash and beans, I passed. I had a nice romantic meal for one (sob!), and bought a book. Exciting. That night we went around trying to book stuff and as we wanted to leave for Pai the next day. We ended up booking that bus, a bus to Laos for Monday and buying our visas for Vietnam. A very expensive and depressing evening for all of us...so we went home.

So, Pai! We got here yesterday afternoon in our mini-bus, where we met Kiwi Carl...our new travel pal. We all got along so well and as we had all spoken about poo, we realised we were destined to travel together. We checked out his lonely planet and apparently, in Pai you can live in a tree! So, WHAT DO WE DO? Seek out this treehouse for the 4 of us. We walked past one; old, tiny, probably unstable, some steps missing, huge open windows where people will steal all your stuff...'Well, that looks perfectly s*** doesn't it?'. We decided right there and then we MUST HAVE IT! The owners said it was only for 2 people but we pretty much stole the key off her and said we can easily fit the four of us in there...which you can! It's....cosy. We're in love with it.

Once we dumped our bags we went for a walk to suss out this town. It is so me. It's fairly small but enough to entertain yourself, loads of cool shops, quiet but not too quiet, it's up in the mountains, it's hippy, it's COOL! I love it. We found a shop that sells various items, we came away with a very small fishing net (which turns out wasn't even for sale but Olivia wanted it), candles for our treehouse, insence sticks, a pack of cards and plasticine, as we planned to play that plasticine pictionary game that evening. We were definately in for a ROCKING NIGHT!

We decided to go to the river opposite our tree and fish for our dinner. We grabbed a nice drink at sunset and sat by the (5cm water) with our net. We caught a fish! Because we're nice we put it back (the fish you had to look at really carefully, as it was about the size of a fingernail). We then met Ben, who walked over for a chat...a nice English chap who teaches English in Bangkok. We all decided to meet up later for drinks and dindins. Played all night with that bloody plasticine but we could tell everyone at the bar was so jealous and wanted to play. Obviously.

We were a bit nervous about our airconless, fanless sleep...in our tiny room with 4 people...but it was GOOD! Again! I loved it. We woke up this morning, got breakfast, laughed at Carl who just got a tattoo of a rat instead of a mouse, rented motorbikes and went off for the day visiting waterfalls and bezzing it around Pai. So fun!

And now, it's now. I need dinner and everyone is waiting for me at the tree for our tree party! Bye now! xx

P.S. Found out yesterday that Fizz in swiss means Fart. How funny is that!