So you are probably wondering what we have been up to since the last blog update. Well here you go (a little longer than normal).......

After having a great time in Koh Samui it was time to move on. We grabbed a taxi on 28th June, taking us to the port so we could get the ferry to Don Sak on the Thai mainland. We chatted to a guy from Canada which made the 3 hour journey pass quickly. On arrival, it was a complete shambles. No-one knew what they were doing. Coaches arrived in abundance and we were all confused as to what one we should be getting. Everyone was getting stressed out. We along with the dozens of other travellers asked the coordinator several times where to wait and all he kept saying was “wait a minute, wait a minute”. Not what we wanted to hear in 35 degree temperatures. You would think it was the first time that anyone had arrived in the isolated port.

We eventually got our 1½ hour coach from the port to Surat Thani train station. The place was a bit bland to say the least however we decided to explore for dinner and came across the local market. There were certainly some interesting sights including ox tongues (and part of the face), cockroaches, maggots and other interesting food for sale. Suddenly, we didn’t feel so hungry.

For the hours before our train departed we sat in a cafe eating vegetable Pad Thai; it wasn’t the sort of place where you would risk eating the meat.

We finally got the overnight sleeper train for 12 hours to Bangkok. We had a cabin with bunk beds and thought it was great until we saw a couple of cockroaches running around. So the night was spent hitting cockroaches with our shoes and not getting much sleep. Lisa was scared so decided to curl up with Mark on the bottom bunk!!

We arrived in Bangkok at 9am. This gave us time to get a taxi to Bangkok Airport for a 12:50 flight to Chiang Mai (2nd largest city) in the North of Thailand. On arrival at the airport, we sat in a coffee shop and used the free Wi-Fi to Google a hotel using Trip Advisor. We found a great hotel called “The Castle”, which was shaped like one (THB810 per night; £18). The small pool was great especially when they put on the jets. It turned out to be a great choice and the staff were lovely.

During the evening, we took a tuk-tuk to a nice riverside restaurant and sat and had a good meal. Unfortunately, we were nibbled that night by mosquitoes. The next morning, we chilled out and took another tuk-tuk to the tourist office to book a 3 day jungle trek, Flight of the Gibbon (a zip-wire experience in the jungle including a trip to a waterfall) and our trip to Laos.

Afterwards, we went to a Fish Spa where you sit with your feet in a fish tank with your feet being nibbled by Garra Rufa fish. It was very ticklish but fun at the same time. It helps to improve skin conditions apparently!! Following this, we had a paraffin wax on our feet which took 20 mins. Once the wax was removed, our feet felt like velvet. When we walked back to our room, Mark saw something black in the road and nearly stood on it. It was a live Scorpion!! After getting changed, we went for a few drinks and played pool in a local bar.

The following morning, we were collected by minibus from our hotel at 8am to start the 3-day trek to the jungle. We had a group of 11 people who were a great bunch. Strangely, one girl came from Farningham Road – less than 5 miles from where we live......small world.

The first day involved a drive for about 1 hour to the local market to buy some water and have a look around the village. After that we continued to the elephant trekking camp. This elephant trek wasn’t as good as the one we did in Krabi. The route wasn’t as good and some of the elephants were tied up with chains. It was sad to see and we felt a bit guilty although we did buy a load of bananas for our elephant to eat. Every couple of minutes it would stop and throw its trunk in our direction.....god, its breath stunk.

After lunch, we had a tough 3 hour trek up steep muddy hills in temperatures of mid 30’s, washed in a waterfall and walked over makeshift bamboo bridges. Some of these were pretty dangerous with no railings. We eventually reached the camp where we would stay the night. Lisa had problems carrying her overnight bag up the hills so the guide kindly offered to take it. Mark was carrying his backpack consisting of, amongst other things, a laptop and a load of wires. What in a jungle can be done with this!! He also appeared to have brought everything else except the kitchen sink and was laden down like a pack horse.

The evening was spent in a remote village in the middle of nowhere, which we were sharing with a local tribe and enough animals to fill Noah’s Ark. There was no electricity, no hot water, no lighting except a couple of candles and an outside squat toilet that was about as inviting as the food we had seen in the Surat Thani market. Anyway, it turns out that everyone there was related to the 85-year old man who headed the village and cooked our dinner. He seemed quite frail until five minutes later he was smoking something that definitely wasn’t tobacco, giggling and hopping around the camp!! He was great fun though although he didn’t speak a word of English and probably couldn’t have done anyway after his smoke. We all played games and listened to the music we had loaded on our laptop.....it was useful after all!!!

The area we slept in was uncomfortable but cosy. All 11 of us slept in the same room, on a hard wooden floor with a thin mattress, blankets and mosquito nets! Mark couldn’t sort himself out going to bed, mislaid stuff and got into a right mess with his torch. The whole group were cracking up and we all had tears streaming down our eyes. Finally, we all feel asleep after about half an hour but were constantly woken by strange sounds.

The next morning, we were woken up by the sound of mooing! We couldn’t believe it the cows were up against our hut. Next the chickens started and then the dogs barking. It was like Old McDonald’s farm!

The 2nd day of the trek the group were split up. 3 of us went one way, and 8 went the other way. This was because of some doing a 2-day trek and the others doing a 3-day trek which was the one we did. So Mark, I and Tisha (from Canada) were left with 2 guides, who spoke about 5 words of English between them, to do a trek up more steep hills in hot temperatures. We realised we were running out of water big time and Mark was irritated by this as he drinks likes a fish. No one had bothered to tell us that, unlike the first day, there was no water stop during the day!! We sat in the shade and had another rice lunch!! The guides made us hats from banana leaves to keep our heads cool. The lack of liquids made it a struggle to say the least.

Some of the walks involved crossing bamboo bridges which wobbled to the point that we almost fell into the rivers and ravines below and along cliff edges >100 feet up that were barely wide enough to walk across......Health and Safety in the UK would have had a field day. I think this part of the trip should have been for the experienced hikers but somehow we got through it.

We arrived at a different camp to another wooden hut for the night. We met up with 4 travellers who stayed the night with us in our hut. We all washed in the local river, disgusting coloured brown water but we were so sweaty after the long trek. To be honest, I think we were probably dirtier after the wash!!

The evening consisted of eating at camp, walking around with torches, joining in with the local Thai guys down by the river with a forest fire. The Thai guys got drunk and were trying to sing English and Thai songs. Mark tried some Thai “water”, which was strong local whisky. All of the other Farangs (the Thai name for foreigners) looked horrified and declined the drink. After about an hour, we decided to go back to camp to get some sleep.

During this evening, Lisa couldn’t sleep as she saw light coming into our hut and thought that something strange was going on outside. We found out in the morning it was our guide checking that we were all ok although we are not sure what he could have done if it wasn’t as he could barely speak after we left him drinking the Thai whisky.

The next morning, we trekked across rice fields, which were quite magical, and went bamboo rafting which was really good fun. We think the guy guiding our raft was a bit of a novice as he fell off into the river at the rapids and we were left heading towards the rocks. Fortunately, he had swum quickly to get back on the raft gaining control just in time. Lisa had a sore bum for 4 days after the rafting!! We said goodbye to the others, exchanged emails and moved on to the next adventure.

The next morning, Lisa was kacking her pants at the thought of going to Flight of the Gibbon ziplining. Mark was excited and couldn’t wait to get there!! We were collected by minibus, and taken to the jungle. There was one other tourist, a German girl who joined us for the adventure of the day.

This adventure included 1 hour of ziplining for over 2 kilometres, abseiling and wobbly sky bridges. Lunch and a trek to the Kompong waterfalls were also included. We were kitted out with our harnesses and given a safety briefing and then we were off. After the first zipline Lisa thought it wasn’t as bad as she had anticipated. The second wire was a different story though; longer and much higher. Soon after Lisa was a quivering wreck but couldn’t turn back so had to suffer one nightmare wire after another.

We continued through the jungle until we got to the longest and highest wire. It was right near the end so Lisa plucked up the courage to zipline. Her eyes were closed and she screamed her way along until she knew she was on that platform. Unfortunately this was the zipline that Mark got stuck on as he didn’t quite make the platform and was left suspended about 200 feet from the ground. We thought the guides were messing around but it turned out not to be the case; the pulley needed lubricating. After the recovery by the instructor, we had a nice lunch and proceeded to waterfalls. During the walk we saw some Monks casually walking around. They are happy smilers and don’t mind their photos being taken. One posed on the river crossing for us!

During the evening, we packed our rucksacks and had a swim in our hotel pool. The evening was spent sitting in a bar eating pizza and playing pool. Lisa told the waitress she didn’t want mushrooms on her multi-topping pizza.......so it turns up with a ridiculously large pile of mushrooms. After sifting through these she basically ended up with a cheese pizza as there appeared to be no other toppings added!! To add insult to injury, a couple of minutes later a rat ran out of the kitchen and across the bar......maybe it had eaten the other toppings!!!!

The following day, was our last day in Chiang Mai, so after breakfast we sat in the cold pool and chilled out for 45 mins before getting ready to go to Chiang Khong. This is a small town on the border with Laos. More to come in the next update.