Well it's been a while since my last entry. The bus trip to the border was not very enjoyable, windy roads, lots of pot holes. But eventually it was time to get off and make the border crossing to Thailand.

The first place I stayed in Thailand was Chiang Rai. It wasn't that exciting, just a small city. There were the usual things to do there such as visiting temples and going treking. I visited the temples but decided to wait until Chiang Rai to do the treking as it was going to cost more for me to do it there. The room I stayed in was pretty basic, only 80 baht a night (3 Australian dollars), but there wasn't even room to swing a kitten, and the patchwork wallpaper was peeling off in numerous places. The bed and pillow were really hard too. I also nearly s*** myself one night when a crack of thunder woke me up.

Then it was on to Chiang Rai. I ended up staying there 6 nights, most of which consisted of drinking. Met a Thai guy at a travel agent who I then went out with for a night with a couple of his friends. It was an eventful night and if anyone caught my facebook status update about waking up under unusual circumstances, it related to this night. I ended up staying at a place I think Milly and Josh stayed at (Ginny's guesthouse), They had mentioned it to me but the lady they met, Bee, wasn't there so I had forgotten about it. Anyway, came across it accidentally and met Ginny who was very helpful. I booked a jungle trek and Thai cooking class and did these over the coming days.

The jungle trek in itself was a bit of a let down. To begin with there were two groups of us. In my group there were two english girls and an English guy, and two American guys. They all knew each other but I liked them from the start and was looking forward to getting to know them. But we soon found out that there was a second group, we heard yelling and screaming from the tuk-tuk behind us and were disappointed to know that they were treking with us (it was about 10 in the morning, I think one of the guys was still drunk). So we all meet up and it is a group of French guys and girls, some Dutch girls and a German guy. They are all pretty nice actually except for one guy who just keeps screaming random s*** (the tour group guide who had been travelling with them may have initiated it which was also bad news for the trek). So the one French guy and the guide were both dickheads but luckily the French guy ran out of steam about half way through the trek and his random rants became less - he went to bed about 8pm that night.

Continuing with the trek, it was all a bit too touristy. I don't know what I was expecting (I heard from a girl in Pai a few days ago about a great trek she went on from Chiang Rai so you can get them), but we found out that the first day trek was pretty much just a loop from where we started, then we went on elephants which was kind of cool but it was also just a loop around a track which lasted about half an hour. After that we had a pretty tame night and I got to know all but a few of the french guys (one guy, who I did get to know had limited english so it was fun to try and talk to him. He was also pretty crazy and ended up doing stacks on in the hut we were all staying in while yelling QUICHE!). The next day we split up the group as some were doing two nights, while I was only doing 1. We then did another walk to a waterfall, then some white water rafting and bamboo rafting. Was all a bit underwhelming but we did manage to pass two other rafts and win the white water rafting challenge (which we mad up once we were in the water and realised we were last in the group). It ended with a visit to two highland village tribes. It was extremely tourist oriented with the tribes simply trying to sell you things (I went to a longneck tribe where they put rings around their neck to make them long!!). It also rained alot on the second day so we were walking around wet for most of the day.

Next couple of nights I went out with people I had met in Chiang Rai and on the trek. Had a good couple of nights.

Decided it was time to move on and booked a bus to Pai. Not much to say about Pai, it was a great little town (known for being a bit of a hippy town), which you could spend weeks in doing nothing. I decided before I went that I would concentrate on what Pai has to offer at night, rather than day :) So I went out the three nights and slept in the days. Didn't get up until 4pm after the first night. I did hire a moped and go see some of the sights Pai had to offer with a Dutch girl I met on one of the days but apart from that it was just drinking, sleeping, and eating.

I was going to stay in Pai one more night for a big party at one of the bars but thought better of it as I am trying to get to the full moon party on the 28th. So yesterday I quickly checked out, took my bike back, and waited for a local bus to get back to Chiang Rai (4 hour bus ride). There wasn't enough seats so I went half of the trip in a seat and then swapped with an english guy and sat on the floor. Some overtaking cars nearly had head ons with approaching cars but that's expected on any bus trip in Asia.

Got to Chiang Rai at 4:30pm and booked a bus to Bangkok leaving at 5pm. So I get on to that bus and off I go again. Unfortunately it's just a normal bus and I only have on seat, and the bus seems to have very soft suspension so anytime the driver turns the steering wheel we're swaying left and right like a pendulum (an upside down pendulum). Also there are the expected pot holes, one of which I think was the width of the road.

Arrived in Bangkok last night (not at the bus station because supposedly we had caught an illegal bus and they can't take us to the bus station). I meet an English guy and his Thai "guide" and they get me to Khao San Road. We have a couple of drinks and then I head off at 5am to find a backpacker to stay at. So now I am in Bangkok for a few nights before heading to Koh Phanang for the full moon party. It's such a big place I'm not sure what to do but there are some temples and palaces so that seems like a good place to start.