Arrived in Bangkok last Saturday!! Although fight was comfortable enough hardly got a wink of sleep. SPent the first day wandering aroung Bk with Dave and Helen, saw the Khao San road, went on the river ferry, wander around a park and also the air con malls, took a tuktuk back to Kaho san which is one hell of an experience! That night had a few beers and some good food whilst watching the rain! Stayed just off the Khao san road but was woken in the middle of the night by a fire alarm and then struggled to go back to sleep with images from the Beach in my head! The next day I wandered by myself before meeting the rest of my GAP group at another hotel a bit further away. Eat with everyone that night. On the Monday we all exploired Bangkok and did the sights such as the giant Buddha, markets where we saw all kinds, another ferry ride, Wat Po and the Grand Palace kindly led by our leader Sit. Everyone in the group is really nice and I've been sharing a room with an irish girl named Lizzy. On Monday night we took the train to Chang Mai. It's supposedly a sleeper train although at 3am we got woken and moved onto a bus as something was blocking the track. In Chang Mai we visited the mountain temple and were blessed by a monk before seeing the 'delights' of tiger kingdom! That afternoon we swap in the hotels pool and chilled out a bit before eating out again. Thai food is pretty good!!! And so much choice! The next day the trek began, we took a pick up truck to a market then a waterfall before lunch and finally we were dropped mid afternoon in the forest with our bags, Sit, Sammy and Lit. We walked for a couple of hours mainly downhill to our first night at a karen village. accomodation and food was basic but our hosts were lovely and the squat loos were yet another experience. The next day we walked for 4 or so hours in the morning with a few steep climbs. After having lunch at an elephant camp we did the next part of our journey to another village by elephant!! (Photos to come later!) That night the boys took on the locals at football before we had to make a run back to our hut in the poruing rain! The final day was a bamboo raft for about 3 hours downstream to lunch and our pick up trucks ready to be taken back in to Chang Mai city! Never has a toilet, shower and bed felt so good!!! Although the group is still togther we had our last supper lastnight and wandered the night bizzar, tonight we'll take the train back to Bangkok and then tomorrow a couple of us our continuing on together to Phuket and then Koh Phi Phi/Phi Phi Leh.