Hello from finally sunny Chiang Mai! Was planning on being on my way to Luang Prabang by now but cant drag myself away from this awesome place and the amazing people ive met here! Honestly at first glance I wasnt to bothered about Chiang Mai but it seems the more time you spend here the more you can't bring yourself to leave!

It continued to rain throughout the the next day and our visit to the elephant sanctuary but as expected it made no difference to my enjoyment, I was on cloud nine amongst my heffelump friends!

I wont go into too much detail about the day because I'm pretty certain its something I'll be going on and on about when I'm home, as most of you know, I'm a sucker for a good cause! The place is amazing, the elephants have the run of the place, no rides or shows here and defo no chains. The elephants get to do what ever they want unless thry need to go to ele hospital and they know where to go when theyre hungry and when theyre ready for a bath!

The place is based around a few huts that are connected with bridges with some feeding stations at elephant head hight and there are loads of volunteers who work all day chopping the tonnes of fruit and veg for their dinner. The pl;ace was started by a thai lady called lek who was a member of a hilltribe she started rescuing elephants years ago and now there are 36 roaming the 150 acres of mountain that she and many volunteers (and day trippers like me) have helped to buy for the elephants. The place really is amazing, we spent most of the day feediong the elephants and being filled in on some ele phacts, bu bum, before feeding ourselves and then heading over to the river to give the ones who fancied it a bath! It was freezing but I couldnt help but jump straight in there!

Before we left we watched a rather hard hitting video about why the elephants need saving and just how endangered they are, lets just say I will never again ride an elephant (unless they are well looked after) or feed one when they are walking the streets! Some of the elephants at th park had suffered from broken backs or were blind due to the way they were treated, one even had a met amphetamin addiction as her users used to inject her with it to keep her working 24 hours a day, all in the name of tourism!

The longer term volunteers were lovely and by the end of my day f I'd had anything near the money I would have stayed there for another week and helped out! In fact I'm defo coming back on a holiday here to do that sometime in the future! Its an amazing place doing amazing work and the woman desrves a medal who runs the place! Also i was chatting to guy from england there, turns out hes on a break from touring with walking with dinosaurs (actor) and we have a common friend! hehe, of all the places a mountain in thailand is where we meet! hehe

Of course that night was paddys day and given i'm in irish company we headed to the local irish bar to drink and sing the night away. A new guy arrived at the hostel that day so he can along to, wioth alice and dave and we met loads of other interns there too. An top night was had by all and when we stumbled in at 4am those going on a trek at 8am the next day were starting to regret it, hehe.

I spent yesterday milling round with Lauren, alice, Dave and Kamal (the newst arrival who is a doctor working in Ireland who is over here to do some volunteer HIV eductation workm infact those on facebook need to look up power of 100 and 'like' it, they are doing amazing work and you dont have to donate if you dont like although they only ask for one pound and are a just giving chaity!). We wandered around, checked out a few wats, drank coffe, wandered again, ste dinner and finally ended up in the night market. Lauren and I ate at an english restaurant and i had the best bloody bangers and mash Ive ever had, mainly because I havent had it in so long! haha

Today is a slow day to, banan pancake for brwakfast the Lauren and I hit Tiger Kingdom where you get up close and persoanl with the tiggers up to the age of 2, they use the moeny to look after the tigers and send them to good breeding pragrammes when they reach the age of two. The tiogers arent drugged or chained up and they are not hit by their trainers as they are in othe rplaces. They grow up in animal kingdom and are trained by a tap on the nose or loud noise from when they are cubs and they are amazing! as soon as i sat next to one of the cubs she (mimi) climbed into my lap and got herself comfy (much to musuprise) before strting to lick me. Of course the trainer tapped his jeans with a sdmall stick and she stoipped licking me as this is discouraged because licking turns to playful biting and of course when the tiger is older and much bigger this wouldnt be the best thing. Most of the bigger tigers were asleep (they sleep over 14 hours a day) and rightfully so the trainers will not wake the, they play with them if they are awake but again, no tricks or shows here!

Anyhoo, I should buzz of and pay for my coffee and internet, sorry about the spelling, this keyboard is shocking and I simply dont wanna waste my time typing slowly! I'm sur eyou understand! - people to see, coffee to drink and gorgeous food to eat!

BTW: Happy birthday Grandma!!!!!!!!!xxxx