Hya everyone :)

So were Sad to be leaving this great place but it's time to move onto Vietnam . Anyway there is a lot to tell you about chang mai but where to start is the hard part ......so the bloke David who runs funky monkey gave us this map and highlighted some sights to see in the old town we thought we go and give that ago. we spent our first day in chang mai mainly walking around taking in the city and looking at temples . There are so many temples here nearly every corner it's crazy . We can definitely say we've seen our fair share of them. That night we just went to a place called dash it's a thai restaurant meant to be one of the best around here so we thought we see what it was like . It was no disappointment the food was amazing we loved it . We got an early night as the following day we were doing the elephants .

We were up nice and early for the elephants I'm not sure if Lauren managed to get much sleep through her excitement but I got my 8 hours !! So we set off nice and early to the place it was called woodys elephant training if you get a spare ten minutes check it out on the web, the place is phenomenal. We got there and within 5 minutes I had lost Lauren she had run off to see an elephant haha . When I eventually found Lauren I got her back with the group for our briefing . We got given this cool outfit a t- shirt and some big baggy trousers I loved it . The bloke woody who runs it gave us a talk for 30 minutes explaining the elephants and how he's brought them up all his life and how there like brothers and sisters to him he tells us some great facts about the animal and it's really interesting you really feel part of it when you leave this place . Explains how he trains them from an early age and how he looks after them . Lauren's now calling me an elephant because the amount of food they eat , he has to pull in over 3 tonnes of food a day just to feed them . It's crazy ......I soon told her I weren't an elephant as they only sleep 3 hours a day haha.

Once we were all briefed and learnt about the elephant woody taught us some keywords in thai, commands and actions we needed to know to control our elephant. So he gave us 15 minutes to read them speak them to each other and test one another . Now there was quite afew and they didn't seem to be sinking in very well with me so I took the opportunity to write them on my arm this way I defo wouldn't forget it haha . so we set off to meet them and feed them some bananas and candy !!

We were both quite nervous at first because you don't realise how big these species are they're gigantic and it's seems the closer you get the bigger they get so strange. We fed them lots and lots of bananas and loads of candy till it all run out .....in the end I gave her the whole bunch of bananas because one at a time wasn't enough for her . Now for the funny part ......so once our elephant was fed it was time to mount the 'beast' . Our elephant was a mum so she also had a baby with her named (happy) it was tied to her it was so cute . The mum was 27 years old so it was very young as they can live up to 100. Anyway the person at the back has to get on first and with our commands in place it was time for Lauren to command it to call it and get our elephant where she wants it .First you take hold of its ear and then say 'yakar' loudly and powerful so the elephant knows who's in charge, this means leg up .... The elephant lifts it's leg so you can stand on it ( which is the size of a dining table) .Once you have done this you then say 'soung' this means the elephant will lift her leg higher to give you more ability to pull yourself on . Now Lauren was lifted to the highest the elephant could it was up to her to pull herself onto her. I was in bundles of laughter watching her and hearing her command it . It was so funny . Now Lauren was in place It was my turn same scenario but this time I would be sitting at the front and on the neck of her with my hook and in control of every movement she made . There was always a trainer with us incase anything went wrong or you felt unsafe but they wouldn't take command useless you needed them to. So I was in full control of her it was so so surreal I was in a forest on a neck of a elephant in Thailand telling her where to go and how I wanted her to manoeuvre. This was brilliant and me and Lauren were loving every second .

We started our trek into the forest up some steep hills through lakes and back down hills . I was loving it on the neck being in control of something so big and powerful. Everything I told her she done and it was perfect . As you all know elephants aren't the quickest of animals so you tend to say 'boi' quite a lot this means forward and when you say this you kick the back of its ears as well not hard just firmly so they can feel you there . After us trekking for nearly an hour we swapped roles and Lauren took control of her and I went to the back . She was nervous at the start but after 10 minutes and once she found her voice she was in full control of her . If you don't command it loud enough your could get yourself in a bit of a muddle . If you don't say anything to the elephant she will not move so it's not a time to be quiet .Once we arrived back to the camp on our elephants were all very tired and hot (especially our elephant ) it was time to get in the lake with them and give them a good wash . The pictures do a lot of the talking for this but you can imagine how great this was . After a good bathing time and playing with them we went for a lunch break including the elephants and had some time to chillout before the afternoons activities .

After lunch it was time to do some manual labour ( to Lauren's disappointment) and go and cut some candy up for the elephants in the forest. I was so so excited i was going to be holding a machete cutting stuff down. As if someone had handed me a machete I couldn't believe it . I felt like zoro haha. Lauren repeatedly asked me to be careful with something so sharp . So we arrived and I was off running through the trees like Tarzan cutting candy down as quick as I could . Our leader told us the ones I had cut were too small and I had to get in deeper and find longer and thicker ones I couldn't believe it . You have to strip them leaf by leaf it's a 5 minute process. I carried on and managed to get some good ones in the end and I was happy with myself . Lauren gave it a crack and managed to cut one or two really good ones aswell. Once we had enough we headed back to the elephants to give them there treats apparently they love this stuff .

We got back and fed them they made some real big noises we guessed they were really happy with what we had brought back . Our last activity of the day was to go for a swim with them . This was the one we had been looking forward to the most and we were both dying to get back on them one last time . Once we were both mounted onto her it was time to get in the lake , this was obviously something we were not going to be able to do alone in the water so the trainer got on aswell and sat in the middle of her !! We were in the water and my god we had never expected it to be quite like this the elephant was under the water it's whole body swimming with us just laying on top . Then it would come up for a breather and you would be a couple of feet above the water before it would then dive back down again there was nothing for you to hold onto apart from locking your legs around its neck and Lauren was holding onto a tiny piece of rope . There was a point when I was seriously worried I was coming off this thing, I was on her neck and wrapped my legs around her as hard as I could . I was holding onto it for dear life she kind of turned In the water and all I could hear was the thai trainer shouting in thai to her obviously something on the lines of " straighten up " and in the other ear I could hear Lauren yelping " I think I've pulled a muscle in my leg " . She pulled round and we were above the surface again and felt at ease laughing our heads off . This was crazy ! After being in the water for what felt like a lifetime..... we were back out and back down off our elephant !! We had had our last few photos with the elephants and had a shower and got brought back to our hotel .

The next day we got up we were both in abit of pain our groins were killing from where we were sitting on the elephant allday. We were going to get out push bikes and bike around the city but our legs were killing so we hired a moped for ( £2) and went around on that and saw the sites. We went to the Saturday night market which was really fun we had market food ( pad thai) my favourite and a pancake afterwards. The place was so so busy I thought they were giving stuff away ! It was the local thai Market so everything was so so cheap . I bought a chang beer t shirt which was only 2 quid !!

We had to check out of funky monkey as they could only give us three nights to our disappointment we loved it there and will miss our free fruit shakes and cups of tea in the mornings ! While I flew around to our new place with our bags on the scooter I left Lauren enjoying a fry up . Our new place is called "the green tulip" it's a new build and had one of the best reviews on trip advisor for a guesthouse ! Now we were checked into our new place , we went and got a tuk tuk to tiger kingdom. When we arrived at tiger kingdom we chose which size of tigers we wanted to go and see. we chose the smallest ,small and big ones. There are a lot of pictures for you to look at I hope you all like them . The smallest ones were really playful and we got to feed them which was fun. The small ones were not too bad , but when we got to the big ones they were really strict about where you can stand and not to touch the head etc. I knew these tigers were big but I couldn't believe how big there were up close they were massive as your be able to see. We had our own little tour guide taking us to each big tiger in the cage , the last one we approached seemed unsettled . It didn't help when our tour guide said " yeah this tiger seems to be angry " ........brilliant as he was egging us on to go and lie on it . We were so bloody nervous but it was so much fun at the same time . Great experience and another good day in chang mai .

We didn't do much the next day as we had been on the go since we have arrived here so we chilled for the most of it , our new place had a roof top terrace so we sat up there researching for when we hit Vietnam. Our last day in chang mai we decided we would go to the chang mai zoo. We got told to go there by everyone we had met on our travels so far saying it was well worth it . We had a great day here and saw loads of animals , it took away abit of the excitement when we saw the tigers and elephants as we were standing about 5 metres away and to think a couple of days before we had been playing with them . It just didn't feel that exciting . We said after we should of maybe done the zoo first as a appetizer before the real thing . It was still a good day and our favourites were the black bears, they were really entertaining and the closest we could to an animal. We went to the night bazar on our last night it is a massive market which sell everything you can think of . Watches , t-shirts, shorts , trousers , sunglasses all the usual fake stuff. We found a very good shop selling t-shirts all printed in what ever colour you liked ! You wouldn't know they were from Thailand they looked as if you would of got them from top shop or river island and at 2 pound they were a steal! Lauren finally found her purse , she seems to loose it everytime we go to shop haha . She bought a nice t shirt with a print on saying hug life........well that's what she thought it said . It actually said thug life !!!! I was surprised when she chose it as it was a bit out of character for her but I assumed she was happy with it so I didn't want to put her off it . When she had got home to our room and looked closer In the mirror she could see actually what it said and was actually gutted with her purchase . It was such a funny moment .....on the bright side I feel very safe now with walking next to her with her THUG LIFE t-shirt on hahahahahahahahaha.

We leave today to get a sleeper train back to bangkok and arrive early in the morning. We have to make our way across the city and head to the main airport where we fly to vietnam and arrive on the 16th in Hanoi . Hope you all enjoy the pictures and are all keeping well .

We've had some serious issues with our usb stick and sd cards for the camera !! They appear to have viruses on so we can't upload our chang mai pictures for you all too see. Were as gutted as you all are . We're having to buy new sd cards and a usb stick so hopefully we're be back on track soon .
Keep you updated soon everyone
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