Day 5

Wow, what a journey! 15 hours is a hell of a long time, but we saw some amazing sights along the way. We arrived Chiang Mai at about 5.45 and took a transfer to our hotel. The sleeper beds were great but we didnt manage to get much sleep as the train was quite noisy and it got quite cold in the middle of the night. Lauren spent the night with a cockroach. We arrived at the hotel around 6 and luckily we were allowed to check into our room straight away, rather than the usual 12 oclock check in time! We were so tired so we had to get some shut eye for a few hours. However upon turning the television on Jason discovered one of the channels was replaying last nights Liverpool game so he didnt get much of a nap! We dont have much time to really explore Chiang Mai as we are only here until Monday, but we managed to get to see quite a bit of the 'old town' and also took a walk through the local market, where we brought some fresh fruit but wernt brave enough to try the dried fish - its sold everywhere!

Tonight we are going to the 'night bazaar' which is located on the outskirts of the city on Chang Khlan Road.

Day 6 & 7

We arranged to go treking today for 2 days, 1 night in and around the national park of 'Doi Intranon'. Our group for the tour consisted of 9 people, us 2, a Dutch couple, 2 German guys and 3 girls, 1 from OZ and 2 from Canada, everyone except the Dutch couple were travelling so we all had lots of stories to swap. We left the hotel early Saturday morning and the first leg of our trip took us to a local market where our guide brought some food for that nights dinner. We had the opportunity to take a look around the market, selling mainly local produce. We tried what i can only describe as a pork stick which basically turned out to be bacon on a stick but was very tasty. We also tried dragon fruit, which was really bright and colourful and looked like it was going to be mouth wateringly tasty, it was actually quite tasteless, you could compare to a kiwi fruit. We then tried some 'little bannanas', cant remember the name they use for them. The other fruit we tried looked like a new potato, you can peel with your fingers and inside there are small segments of fruit with a wax like texture and very tasty. We think they may be related to the lychee, the cost of most of the fruits was around 25 Baht per Kilo.

Next stop of the tour, an hour or so away from the market, we did Bamboo rafting down the Mae Wang river, at the foot of the mountains. The river comes from the highest point in Thailand so the water is very cold! Our guide/ raft driver made sure we felt just how cold it was :) After the rafting we took another short drive where we got some lunch. We had rice and noodle which gave us some much needed energy for the next part of our trip..

TREKKING... Our trek took us through the mauntains of the National Park. We were trekking uphill for around 2 hours passing some beautiful scenery along the way, including a waterfall where we stopped to cool off - which was much needed!! After the waterfall we headed on to a local village, called Mae Win, literally located in the middle knowhere!!! The plan was to eat and sleep in the village and then carry on with our trek the following morning. On arrival into the village we discovered our sleeping arrangements for the night, which to say the least was basic:) Although not sure what we were expecting to find! Dinner was cooked by the locals, we had a vegi soup/ broth as well as rice and noodles - ofcourse. Overall quite tasty. Luckily they had a supply of beer, all be it warm but it did the trick, as everyone needed something to numb the pain for what we were about to sleep on. After dinner we lit a camp fire as the village was pitch black - they do have some electricity which is solar powered but no need to waste on lighting. Some of the local village children came to sing to us which was probably forced but they did a good job anyway ;) The night seemed to go by very quickly and as there was not much else to do we all reluctantly headed to bed (we probably did need a good nights sleep anyway). Now how can we describe the bedroom to you... First of all it was not a bedroom, more of a large hut that slept everyone. The only thing seperting people were mosquito nets, our bed/matress was a bamboo mat and we had to sacrifice one of our blankets as a pillow so we were freezing. As we were in the mountains, the temperature dropped significntly over night. We did get the giggles when we got into bed as you could hear every movement and every sound effect from the others, also the whole scenario just made us laugh.

As you can imagine we didnt sleep particulary well, think we must of had few hours at the most. We were woken by the sound of the cockrell at the crack of dawn so had breakfast nice and early. We were expecting rice but got bbq'd toast and marmalade so that was a nice surprise.

The Dutch couple we met, Vera and Anne-Hendrik had booked a 2 night trek but quickly decided after the first night that 1 was more than enough, so they stayed with our group for the rest of the day.

The first day of trekking was hard enough but we had another trek ahead of us, which we thought was only another 1 hour, but ended up being 3!! Couldnt tell you if uphill or downhill was harder, all we know is that our legs are hurting now:) On the way back down the mountain we stopped at another beautiful waterfall which again was just what we needed to call off.

After our trek we were greeted by a pick up truck we all very happily jumped on and were taken to lunch before heading off to an elephant park called Nong Mon Tar where we had the chance to ride the elephants. Both of us rode on the neck of the elephants while others decided to sit on seats which were strapped to the back of the elephants. Jason's elephant was female and had her baby following, Lauren's was the only male of the heard. Riding the elephants was such an amazing experience, scary at first but once you get used to the elephants movements you learn to relax a bit. We were a bit concered before we arrived after some peoople had told us that some sanctuarys dont treat the elephants very well but all the people at Nong Mon Tar seemed to have a very good bond with all the elephants and we certainly didnt see anything to suggest that they were ill treated in anyway.

All in all we trekked for 2 days and 1 night, we've tried some really interesting food, had lots of exercise, taken in some amzing sights and scenery and best of all had an experience we'll never forget.

Day 8

We left Chaing Mai today by train back to Bangkok. It was a quicker train this time, should have taken around 11 hours but ended up being 12, we think the longer journey time was down to the floods. So much of Thailand is still covered with lots of flood water, its a shame to see how the floods have effected so many people, there were some villages we saw on route that have basically been completely wiped out. Rice, and corn farms inparticular have been destroyed. Eventually arrived back in Bangkok train station at around 9pm and was probably 10 by the time we managed to get something to eat. Just getting ready for bed now at 12pm and have to be up again at 3am to get to the airport for our flight into Vietnam. We havent stopped for air yet! Not much sleep but we're loving it :) Hoping to chill out a bit in Vietnam when we visit Halong Bay on Wednesday.