Hey everyone! if you are having troble with the text size i think you roll the button on your mouse down and its makes it larger(hope this works!) we have just got back froma 3 day trek it was amazing! i am loving it now that we are out of the smelly city of Bangkok!

we got the overnight train from bangkok to Chiang mai on Wednesday night which was an experoience! thought we had a private cabin booked but no we were mixed in with the rest! basically you have a seat each on one side the aisle then another pair the other side. we had these two canadian men opposite who rich thought were ok but i heard them talking about the thai women they had found and i thought they were creepy especially one who was ming about 45 and had a horrible dirty sanchez moustach! anyway we didnt get much sleep even though the chairs turn into beds and you get all clean bedding tis noisy and they dont turn the light off! we survived and needless to say we excaped before swapping emails with the creeps!

thursday arrived at guest house really tranquil and lovely room. went into CM to look around, 10 times cleaner lesspolluted and busy that BK so much nicer. we saw the 2 main temples which were tiny compared to BK ones but one was old and had been half destroyed by an earthquake but was beutiful, pink and crumbly! went to the night bazarr which is great for shopping but we have no room to carry things so only bought the old small bit. i got some red lininy trousers for 1.50 rich saya i look like a clown but i think they are ok!

friday got picked up for trek a massive mix of people, 2 french(mum we have been practicing!) 2 belgian, 2 spanish, 2 german, 1 israle, 1 russian! (they were married) wondered what it would be like but everyone turned out to be great fun and really freindly. got in van to go to the elephant ride. there were about 20 eles on rotation, they looked well cared for except one was swaying on the spot which i thought was a sign of distress so i bought him lots of sugar cane and fed him to cheer him up! we got on the elephant ours was called Budda and off we went in this metal cahir strapped onto the elephant.pardon my french but it was f$%^ing scary! the guide sat on the neack and the eles walked in a line up this enormous hill, ours kept wanting to eat so was ducking down and we were sawying around, i nearly had a heart attack! up steep hills and on the top our guide ogt off and said you get on the neck and ill take some pictures so rich and i both did while on a hill moving around! finished the teek after buying bananas all the way round to feed them, i was relieved to be on solid ground but it was great! Next trekked about 2 hours to this hut on a hill in the middle of no where. we had dinner then sat around a fire chatting. great start.

saturday we treked for 2 hours to a hut for lunch then walked another hour to this village with a waterfall for the second night. the views were fantastic. at camp we all swam and chilled out, after dinner we p;ayed card games till 1 am and had coal rubbed on our faces when we got stuff wrong until we were all black!(i taught them piggly mu and be!)

sunday-last day today, we trekked for about 1.5 hours then went bamboo rafting on the mang river it was great the boys aad to help steer while we enjoyed the ruide!

times up! take care x x x