Taking the American couples advice we headed for the treehouse retreat, which was about an hour and a half from chiang mai. We'd heard and read good things about it, but with Emma's uncertainty about the food we loaded up with crisps and headed out.

On arrival we were met by Mink, the host at the treehouse and she showed us to our wooden hideaway, bamboo house, a lovely little wooden cabin backing onto our own natural pool and waterfall.

After exploring the grounds and Emma falling in love with one of the children who was also staying there (with the rascal name basil), we borrowed some bikes and cycled off to some of the local points of interest, the natural waterfalls.

Now I'm all for a little hike off the beaten track, however this place was a bloody nightmare to get to. After a minor encounter with some local dogs (not our only encounter with dogs whilst at the treehouse), and what seemed like a several mile hike, we made it to the waterfalls.

We bathed on the falls and enjoyed the weather and headed back to the tree house for some beautiful Thai food! After dinner all the guests went for a walk in the dark woods to see some fireflies, there were hundreds! The next day we set off out early and biked around the local area to find the lake after the longest detour ever we found it and some beautiful scenery came with that too! After a lovely couple of days at the tree house and a year anniversary well spent we headed back to Chiang mai!

The Wednesday we both woke up excited and this was the day we were finally going to see some elephants and trek through the jungle bare back on Susie! And no Susie isn't a person it's an elephant. This experience was unreal and nothing what we both imagined it to be! We started off by a brief introductory of feeding the elephants... This was a nice way of easing ourselves in!

After a few hours of trekking with the elephants we got to bathe with them in a river which was unreal. After countless cheesy photos and being splashed and kissed by the elephants we said our goodbyes and headed back to chiang mai in search of transport to pai a small town north west of chiang mai.