Hi everyone! Hope I answered all the questions everyone had. Feel free to comment, send me something on the message board or email me if you have any questions, I'll try my best.

Very sorry I've not written my blog recently - been trekking in the rainforest so wifi availability was a bit low.

So to get on with the story; saturday was spent doing some much needed relaxing and sleeping. After posting the blog I chilled out for a bit in the hostel before heading on a huge trek (seriously it was about 3 miles there and back!) to an amazing little bakery that everyone had told me about. Went with 2 other lads, bought our cakes and bagels then sat on a little raised platform inside which had loads of cushions and a fan. After gorging on chocolate cake, cinnamon swirls and cookies I promptly dozed off for 20 mins or so laying on some awesome pillows.

After my best brunch ever (or was it second breakfast?) we headed back, where I crashed out (again) for another nap in the hotel. Woke up and rang home - managed to get my days mixed up so actually missed my sisters birthday by a day, felt very embarrassed so I promised her a box full of presents from round the world when i get back in September.

After that catastrophe I headed out for a late lunch (its about half 2 at this point, still fairly full after my cake fest) went to our usual restaurant jimmys, owned by an American guy (can you guess his name?) Who (apparently) was left over from the Vietnam war, and set up a guesthouse. Not sure how true that is, but he does speak fluent Thai.

It rained briefly while we were there, wasnt quite the tropical storm we needed to clear the air, and it only lasted half an hour or so.

While we were eating the film "the island" was playing. Most Thai restaurants will have a movie playing somewhere. The island is about a group of backpackers in Thailand (very apt) and part of it was filmed in kho phanang, the tropical island were headed to next!

Headed to the bar with my friend and got 2 iced coffees (it's almost the national drink in Thailand, everywhere sells it!) before playing pool for the afternoon. Headed back finally in time for our daily 7 o'clock meeting.

Got told about our next day - heading to 'the nature club' which has a lot of activities (zorbing, quadbiking, ziplining etc...) All set in the protected forest.

Had eaten late at lunch so instead of heading out to a restaurant I had some disgustingly nice banana and chocolate pancakes from the market.

Headed down to the bar for more pool and chatting. Heading back fairly early, ready for a fun day the following morning.

Usual breakfast and morning, jumped onto our trucks for the fairly short drive to the nature club. Parked up at some decking next to a lake where we would be spending our time when we weren't doing activities. Very pretty lake, with a bamboo platform in the middle. We had a kayak and an inflatable zorb style thing for us to use. Very funny trying to run in the zorb on the water - often it would pick up too much speed and send you head over heels, or you would fall out the side into the lake.

All the zip lining people went off 1st, wasn't keen on that as I have already done something similar in France. Relaxed on the decking and sunbathed, then dove in the lake to cool off or played in the zorb for most of the morning. Polished off a few ice creams too as the cornettos were only 15 baht (30p, or 50 cents for my american readers)

Had lunch on the sun loungers (pad Thai... In a box!) which was actually very nice, lots of sweet chili sauce. Its funny how no two pad Thais are ever the same.

Headed out for some quadbiking after lunch, very fun! Havnt driven a quadbike since I was about 10 at a friends birthday party. Great course in the Thai countryside, managed to overtake my friend too which I was happy about. (far too competitive at everything as usual)

Back for more swimming in the lake, it had clouded over by this point and we could hear thunder, but only a light spattering of rain which lasted about 10 mins. The lake was very warm at this point, it felt warmer than the air! So was easy to just relax and paddle about.

Before long it got to half 5, so we headed off to shower and get ready for our next night out. Pretty standard night - backgammon, food, film, then off to the bar for pool. Had to stay inside as it had been raining, so there were at least 3 times as many bugs. Mainly harmless flies and such, but still irritating.

Made the extra walk to the 7 11 on the way back to try out some burgers which someone had said were even better than the toasties. Needless to say they were amazing, and nearly went for a second!

Headed back to find we were locked out again, (not my fault this time!) so had a "sleepover" again.

Up at 10, usual morning routine, headed to a little museum about the Karen people. They're a tribe of people originally from china, who migrated into Thailand to avoid problems with another rival group (the mon people) and to avoid getting caught up in a war with burma. They have their own language, which is apparently quite similar to Thai.

After this we headed out to an actual karen village, which was about an hours drive away. About 40 mins of which offroad on some track! Very uncomfortable bouncing around in the back of the truck.

Randomly our guide for the day was the same guy who provided all the tools and was essentially foreman of the water tank building at the orphanage. Guess he has 2 jobs?

Walked around the village, lots of traditional raised houses and bamboo thatching. Then got shown the bridge, the river and some buffalo. Which pretty much concluded our tour! It was a tiny little village to be fair. And we did see wild pineapples growing which was pretty cool.

Walked out to a floating bamboo raft on the river to eat our lunch - very funny trying to get onto it across a rocky floating bamboo 'bridge'

Back to the hotel for about 3, slept then of for our thai boxing session. Really good work out, ending in a bit of sparring which was fun. Hopefully I'd like to try and do it at university too.

Unfortunately got injured again, this time in my knee (same leg!) so it did swell up a bit, but was hoping it was going to be ok for our trek.

Back for our meeting and a shower before heading out to jimmys. Had an interesting spicy Thai green chicken soupy thing with rice (it said fried chicken with galangal on the menu - I counted it as trying something new!) all up at half 8 for the trekking so headed straight back to the hostel, stopping at the 7 11 for chocolate and sweets for the next few days.

Was very optimistic in setting my alarm at half 7. Woke up just long enough to switch it off and then fell asleep again! Woke up again at 8:20, 10 mins before the taxi left. Whoops!

Very impressed that I managed to pack my bag, have a shower, put sunscreen on and still get 2 slices of toast down before leaving!

About an hour drive to the camp out in the Thai forests near the Burma border. Very cool scenery, and we had a crazy taxi driver who was clearly some off road rally champion judging by how he was driving through the winding track into the camp.

Arrived and had about 10 mins to repack the stuff for our trek, leaving most of our things in the tent. Set off with our 4 guides, and 2 members of the Thai army. Who were supposedly there to stop us sneaking over the Burmese border. They each had a shotgun, so we were not really going to complain!

Set off at a pretty quick pace, making our way through some beautiful rainforest. Lots of ducking and jumping over bamboo and balancing across stones on the occasional stream, but mainly just walking along a narrow track in the forest. We made very good time and stopped off at the cave where we would have lunch.

Lunch was rice - in a leaf! (So we could just throw it away after - leaves are pretty biodegradable you know) we then headed further up the hill to a larger cave. More cool stalagmites etc... Much better than the other cave we had been to, there were massive bats in this one though.

Climbed out the other side of the cave and then headed back to camp. Still at a really fast pace, stopped off at a lake for a quick dip to cool off. Made it back to camp at 2:40. Our coordinators said the last group they had done the trek with hadn't made it back til 4!

Showered off and had a quick nap, then came down for our huge buffet. Fried chicken, Thai soup, mixed veg and a curry. All served with vast quantities of rice. Ate til I couldnt move!

At this point everyone pulls out bottles of whisky and vodka, and we lit the huge campfire. Really fun evening drinking by the fire, nice and cool (it was 26 degrees/ 80 Fahrenheit, which now actually feels almost cold!) completely clear sky for once, so could see all the stars. All the constellations are upside down though, which was a bit weird.

Everyone slowly trickled off to bed (I'd had a nap so was fine) and when there was just 3 of us left the manager of the camp community came out with some bamboo sticks. He showed us how to swing them around properly, then we lit both ends and did a bit of fire dancing! Very cool to do in the pitch black, and got some great photos, especially when we did shots with a long exposure.

Halfway through it kind of hit me that I was in Thailand, on the other side of the world. In the middle of a forest, in a remote camp, swinging round a burning bit of bamboo.

It was pretty awesome!

Eventually the bamboo burnt down, so we drank some more, ate some more. Then headed off to bed.

Woke up the next day after a horrendous sleep, and found I'd been eaten alive by the 3 Mosquitos that had managed to get into the tent. All in all counted 32 new bites. Ouch.

Breakfast was luxurious compared to the usual, some very nice hot chocolate, a choice of 3 different jams, but most importantly - one fried egg each. Couldnt believe how good a fried egg sandwich (with ketchup!) tasted.

Of course after this we started talking about crispy bacon and sausages etc.. And I realized how I am starting to miss western food a bit.

Lots of people had picked up injuries the day before. And some people still had some from before (my knee had been fine actually, but one girls toe was so bad that despite going to hospital it had bled through the dressing and her sock). Other people just wernt up for another trek, so the coordinators just decided to take us back.

So writing this on my bed in the hostel. Never thought I'd miss the crappy little room we have, but it seems so nice now (hot water and a mattress!) compared to the tent floor and a cold dribbly shower

My legs are throbbing from the bites, trying not to itch them, but keep doing it accidentally, very annoying and hope they go away soon.

For now,

Josh xx

Photo is of a light when we were walking back on sunday night - just shows how many bugs were swarming around!