S: I wanted to do something different in Chiang Mai, and found a 'Paradise 3D Art Museum'. Inside we were surrounded by realistic paintings on the walls and floors in 3D, so as visitors we could immerse ourselves into the jaws of a shark etc. We had a picture where we were walking along a bridge in the middle of the jungle, it looked very realistic considering they are just paintings, it was the level of art we appreciated. We spent all of the afternoon there, and everybody took pictures for everyone one else, it was great fun.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at the Wat Chedi Luang. We were lucky enough to be there at the time when the monks were praying, it was wonderful to just sit down and watch them in meditation and chanting.

J: We arranged a visit to Woody's Elephant Training Park for a day. We had a Thai lesson on instructing elephants and an introduction to the place. The visitors were spilt into two teams and we were lucky enough to be put in the "candy" team instead of the "poo" team. To get on the elephants we had to give a simple instruction, which the elephant responded to and then made a step with their front legs and up we climbed. Sam found it slightly more difficult than me, but got on eventually and off we set for a ride around the jungle. They taught us basic Thai on how to control the elephant but we were given a mother with her baby who made it crazy hard to control even for the keepers. When we walked through a stream the baby just laid down and rolled around playing while the mother sprayed us with water, it was refreshing in fairness as it was so hot and great to watch them both play. After the ride we got to take them into the river and wash them, it was amazing being so close to such a huge powerful creature and interacting with them, they loved the water!

S: Riding the elephants was fantastic, and being in the water with them was a life changing experience. After the nice lunch we went to cut down sugar cane, which is their favorite, they actually let me handle a machete and I still have 10 fingers and thumbs - impressive stuff.

After all our hard work, the elephants came back again eating our sugar cane and then we were lucky enough to 'swim' with the elephants. We got back onto the elephant with the mahout (guide) between us and we set off into the lake. It was great fun, and a little scary at the same time. Especially when the elephant went dived completely under the water and pulled us down with her. The day was amazing and certainly something I will never forget.

J: On the drop off back to our hostel the guy said he couldn't get us back as it was now a walking market but would get us as close as possible. That was fine with us, then we realised the size of the market! It was huge and we wondered around had some food and spent about 3 hours wondering back.

The next day we rented a bike and rode into the mountains to visit a waterfall; it had an impressive 10 levels to it and it was enjoyable experience walking through the national park looking at them all.

S: Doi Suthep was next on the list to visit. We thought we were going to be late, so James drove us there as quickly as possible. That was great until we realised we had 10km of winding roads up to the temple. The temple itself was massive, beautiful and golden with lots of visitors. They had a long line of bells at the top, although you weren't allowed to bang them. The temple had a stunning view of Chiang Mai below, which we sat and admired for a while. After that we droves to the view point at the top of the mountain, it was up another 10 km of winding roads and by now the temperature had dropped and it was freezing!! The view from the top was breath taking especially as the sun had started to set. On the way down Chiang Mai looked stunning, all lit up in the dark.

J: Later that night we went to the local cabaret show. It was a lady-boy show with a full cast of....men? Some of them looked more feminine than most woman and their 'figures' in those outfits made you wonder if they were all man anymore.

The actual show was epic! It had impressive dancing with acting, made us have a good laugh with plenty of beer flowing. I even had a showgirl sit on my lap at one point lol.

S: The show was brilliant fun, and some of the girls/guys were beautiful. A great evening especially as James got a massive kiss from one of them on his forehead.