Our last day in Chiang Mai today and we're all glad we decided to come North before heading South. Chiang Mai is a really relaxed town compared to Bangkok and the climate is much more enjoyable! Plus we've had some amazing experiences that we probably wouldn't have got elsewhere. Today we spent the morning by the beautiful pool - I'll definitely miss it when we're back in sweaty Bangkok, and I took the opportunity to have one last swim. After lunch at the hote...

Today we opted to have a lazy day by the pool as Chris wasn't feeling too clever and we'd all had a tiring day yesterday. So after breakfast we nabbed ourselves 3 sun loungers in the sun and stayed there relaxing, sunbathing and reading for most of the day, with swims in between to cool off - it's a hard life! Chris spent most of the afternoon asleep in the room, so Dave and I decided to go out and see one of the temples while he slept and come back later so we...

A worthwhile early start today as we had booked a trekking trip around a few of the sights in Chiang Mai. We were picked up at about 8:30 in a minibus by our guide for the day, Nom, and her trainee assistant Pai. She explained the timetable for the day or the 'programme' as they like to call it here!), beginning with a 1 hour drive to Phutawan Elephant Camp where we would go for an elephant ride through the forest! There were about 11 of us in our group, includ...

Our free tuk-tuk transfer took us to a different hotel to where we were staying, for us to hand over our voucher for our day trek tomorrow which we'd booked in Bangkok. The agent Sam had wanted us to stay here (they must get commission) but we'd already booked somewhere else. Chris went in to give in our voucher and the lady tried to sell us another tour for today - we just want to sleep! Back in the tuk-tuk we were taken to our hotel, Chang Puak, which means w...