On our way up to chiang mai we stoped off for the day at Ayutthaya. This is an anciant city a few hours train ride up north of Bangkok. On the train we met a dutch piolet called harrman. When we got there we decided to rent bikes for the day, but as jack was still feeling a bit weak from the runs he decided to give it a miss. So Matt Harrman and i went around the city taking pictures. THe Day ended with us taking pictures of a set of three wats as the sun went down and their spotlights came on, making for a beautiful set of pictures.

That night we got the train all the way up to Chiang mai, in the 3rd class section of the train. This altho being much much cheeper was very, very uncomfortable. We had what felt like 1/2 a seat each on a woodern bench. Even so i managed to get around 7 hrs sleep, the others wernt so lucky.

We got into chiang mai at round 1.30pm after a 14hr journey. We were taken strait away to a guest house where we relaxed and went to the local mall. The next day we were up bright and early for out two day treck into the jungle. We met up with our group in the pick up on the way out, which included: a swiss bloke, a french couple and a spanish lady. The first day invoved firstly a ride on some elephants, where we all got to ride on its neck. We then went trecking to a waterfall that we swam in and climbed up. We then went on to a local village where we slept in sleepingbags in a hut of bamboo. The next day we were split up from the group and joied onto another as we were not doing a three day hike. This day involved a morning of trecking, jumping off cliffs and swimming. In the afternoon we went bamboo rafting, where we had a little girl as our guide, she was stroppy. She especiallydidnt like it when we tipped the raft up and over all the time. At the end of this we jumped off onothercliff where i managed to do a double flip into the water!

We spent one more night in the hostel before departing on a coach and then slow boat, into Laos.