Hello again, we are now in Chang Mai in the north of Thailand having just returned from a few days trekking. We were in a group of about 14 people, and after meeting everyone we had a short ride
on an elephant which was OK but probably not something we'd do again. Jon rode on the neck of the elephant rather than on its back, and spent most of his time concentrating on staying on.

After lunch we had a 3 hour walk to the village where we would be spending the evening. The walk was mostly up a very steep hill, surrounded by jungle and after 2 hours we were knackered. At this
point we came across some really beautiful caves full of glittering limestone formations and little bats. After a bit more walking we arrived at the village where we spent the eveing. Everyone slept
in one enormous bed in a log cabin, which felt a bit like we were on summer camp. Thani, one of our guides insisted we all play a numbers game, if you lost then you had some black soot from the
bottom of the cooking pan smeared across your face - very attractive!

The following day we had a long walk to a lovely waterfall, where some of the boys jumped in, we declined and stuck to swimming as it looked a bit dangerous. After that we continued walking to
another village where we spent the evening. The village is occupied by the Lisu tribe, and after a candlelit dinner sat on our beds we were entertained with singing and dancing by local children.
They were very cute, particularly the 2 year old who couldn't remember the words but shouted along at the top of his voice. The village is particularly poor, however last year the government provided
solar panels so there is a little bit of free electricity now. Each family has a small outside tolilet with a tap and no shower. The children have to share one teacher, who teaches three classes at
different times during the day, when they are 11 they move on to a Thai school where they sleep in a dormitory and return home to help with farming at the weekends. There were an awful lot of
cabbages in the hills, this is because the Thai government have successfully converted the local people to farming cabbages rather than opium.

We woke up about 2 in the morning to the sounds of all the local dogs having a who can bark the loudest competition, followed by the roosters starting their morning calls about 2 hours later.
After a bit of breakfast we walked down to the river and had a go at white water rafting and bamboo rafting, which was lots of fun and we managed not to fall out either.

Tomorrow we're hoping to do a cookery course, we'll let you know how that goes.

Love Jon and Sarah

xx