Date: 18th May 2011

Place: Chiang Mai

Weather: Raining again but not as bad

I woke up nice and early ready to tackle the day ahead. Lots of coffee was needed first though and 5 cups were drank. Breakfast was made for us there and then we were given a pack of food which was wrapped up in a banana leaf for lunch. They even made us chopsticks out of bamboo. I was wearing the same shorts since I didn't want to get both pairs super muddy, but mine were soaked so I hung them on a stick over the fire for a while to dry them.

We set off late again, surprise surprise. The walk was only 2 hours this time and seemed a lot easier. The scariest part was when we came across an absolutely huggeee spider! It was way bigger than my hand and all colourful. I legged it past when it was my go. Another obstacle was when there was just a tree trunk over a pretty fast river that we had to cross and nothing to hold onto. The guys got a smaller trunk and held it up for us at either end so it was like a hand rail but it was still soo scary.

It hardly seemed to take any time to get to the van but I was so relieved and so tired. We were then driven to an elephant camp where we got to eat our lunch out of the banana leaves. The elephants were incredible, and so big! We started our walk with them and it was a better one than before. Much longer and a bit more interesting.

Next up was bamboo rafting. We had to get into our swimwear and put on a life jacket which was super reassuring. There were four to a raft and I was with the girls. It was nice and calm at first and then we went down our first rapid and we all let out a scream even though it was ok. We were the only group to fall off though because we got stuck on a rock. It was so hard to get back to the raft because the river pulled you in the way it wanted. In the end I let it take me until I got close to the raft and then pushed on through!

When we came to a sign that said something like dangerous water ahead we had to get off and walk around it and get back on. When I got on I felt something funny under my leg. It turned out to be a bee that had just stung me! I pulled out the sting and then tried to drown the nasty bee!! When we got to the end and out of the water it began to sting quite a bit but I put some ice on it and I haven't felt it since. I think I would prefer bee stings to all the mosquito bites I have.

Before the drive home we had a drink near the bamboo rafting place. The driver scarily had a few whiskys, which at first was funny but then when he had more on the drive home it was pretty ridiculous. Thankfully we got back in one piece!

It was full moon that night so we had to have a celebration. The group all met downstairs and had a few free drinks with our meal. I messaged Brad on facebook but wasn't all that optimistic that he would get it in time. We then head out to a few bars. The first one was a bit strange because there were two lesbians dancing together. I played jenga there with Aimee, Pong and an Iclandic girl (her name is on the tip of my tongue).

We then went to the bar over the road because the bar we were in kept on playing the same songs over and over again. They didn't like that we moved though and when I went back over to use their toilets that I heard were nice they had a little go at me. Pretty nasty really. We sat in the new bar for a while, Aimee beat Jeffery at pool twice and everyone else had the fancy cocktails that I couldn't afford.

We then went to a club called Spicy bar which was pretty seedy. There were loads of old western man dancing with tiny Thai girls, and the music wasn't even inspiring me to dance! I went out to find Aimee and Pong talking about religion which was pretty interesting and then a Welsh guy called Mike came and sat down and started talking to me. We had a chat for about an hour and then Aimee came back out super drunk.

I got her some food and finally convinced her to go back because she was actually falling asleep at the bar. On the way back we stopped off for a toastie and thankfully had Pong to lead the way because I would have got super lost again.