Hi - well now we are in Laos but we didn't get a chance to update our blog in Chiang Mai before we left so we will backtrack before we bring you up to date. The day after the tigers (15/03) we actually spent the day in Chiang Mai having a look at the city and exploring. This followed an extremely long lie in which, believe it or not, we haven't had very many of since we've come away! The town is quite old and divided in to the new town and the old town which is surrounded by an old town wall very similar to the old town of Xi'an that we went to in China. There are loads of cafes selling lots of yummy things (including good coffee which we were pleased about) and second hand book shops that allowed us to trade our books in. Obviously it's all geared up for travellers like us and very convenient. That evening we went to the Chiang Mai Sunday Night Market which we were lucky to catch. It starts around 6pm and is just like a normal Thai market (we have seen so many!) but with loads of food stalls and Thai foot massage at really cheap prices everywhere. The only problem was, the whole place was infested with flying ants! We think it's a bit like at home when they all just come out for an hour or two and swarm about and then disappear - even the locals were a bit distured by it and were rushing to cover up all the food. After about an hour of us being out amongst them, we were just about to give up and then they just disappeared. Weird!

The following day we had booked an Elephant Trek which we were both really excited about doing. The bus picked us up from our hotel early with a great guide called Tom Tom and there was a group of about 10 of us. We travelled about 30 minutes outside of Chiang Mai to the outskirts of the jungle. We had to cross this crazy Indiana Jones type rickety bridge over a river to get to the elephants - that was an adventure enough!! The elephants were beautiful and absolutely huge. Ours was called Noi and looked a lot smaller than the others (Matt was worried he would be too heavy for her!) but we were assured that she was a tough old girl (at the grand old age of 8) and coming through the ranks of her group so quicky that the older females were scared of her and gave their food up for her! That made Matt a lot happier about riding on the 'kick-ass' elephant. To get on to her, we had to climb up on to a sort of tree house platform thing suspended in the air and then had to sort of manouver ourselves on to her back. She had a little bamboo seat for two attached to her and we clambered in to it (not a very lady-like thing to do really, I was glad to be wearing shorts!). Once we were in (and giggling like kids because the whole thing was just so bizarre to us) Noi's trainer literally jumped backwards on to her head with his legs either side of her ears (these Thai people are incredibly good at gymnastics) and stayed there throughout our trek! We were expecting the trek to be really relaxing and almost along a tarmaced road or something - how wrong we were! She trekked through the jungle, up and down hills (in hindsight, going downhill was actually terrifying) that were incredibly steep and we nearly fell out of our seat about 100 times. But the great thing was, we just kept laughing and weren't scared a bit! The best part of the trek was when we went down a really steep hill and in to the river where all the other elephants were loving it and drinking the water and cooling down, she just seemed so much happier to be in the river you could really feel it. When we got off we fed her tiny bananas and got some great photos of us doing that - she sort of grabbed them out of our hands with her drunk and shoved them in 10 at a time! What a great experience it was.

The rest of the day was spent visiting a hill tribe which we felt was a bit of a con really because you go there and it's just completely geared up for tourists and anything authentic is long gone. In a way we were glad to support them (our guide was telling us that the government has a new policy where they are trying to conserve the hill tribe people and not charge them taxes or take away their land) but it just all felt a bit forced almost like they were dressing up and acting for our benefit. From their village, we then trekked (on foot this time) through the Thai jungle which is apparently full of dangerous snakes that we didn't see (phew) to the most amazing waterfall. We were so hot and dirty from the trek that we jumped straight in - it was FREEZING! We didn't actually go in to the waterfall itself because we felt that we might die of cold, but it was fun to do and a great way to cool off after all the walking.

We then went for some lunch and the rest of the afternoon was spent rafting along the river. This was also brilliant - there were 4 of us to a bamboo raft (we saw them making them) including our 'driver' who threw Matt a bamboo stick and ordered him to steer from the back! Most of the river was really sleepy and quiet and we just sort of sailed along in the sunshine looking at the green river banks and the dragonflies but occasionally there were some rapids which got Matt working up a sweat! One time he actually fell in to the water with all his clothes on much to the amusement of everyone on our raft and on other rafts too! He got his own back though by slapping the stick in to the water and splashing us all! We also passed some elephants with their babies enjoying the cold water and washing themselves which was so amazing to see - because it was so wet we didn't have the camera which was a shame. At the end of the rafting we passed a village with some bamboo huts on the river. The place was just full of kids - both locals and some kids visiting on a school trip and as we passed they were waving and shouting and then broke in to 'happy birthday' and 'we wish you a merry christmas' (apparently the only songs they knew in English) and then proceeded to splash us furiously from either side - we were all soaking and laughing so much - they had just been sitting there waiting to do that! So by the end of the rafting we were all soaked and had to get back on to the bus dripping wet - we're sure the driver must have loved us!

We got back to our hotel and then got ready to go out again as we had booked ring side tickets to a Thai Boxing match that evening. What an experience that was! We watched 8 fights with different weight categories. It was one of the most violent things we have ever seen and we were so near to the ring that we saw it all up close! When the ref started the fight both fighters just started smashing each other in the head, the legs, the body, the face hell for leather! The first fight was especially violent and we were just sitting there with our mouths open. But as it got going and we got used to it, we started betting with each other as to who would win (Holly won) which made the whole thing more interesting! The last fight was an international fight between a Sweedish guy and a Thai guy - they came on to 'We Will Rock You' which got the crowd going. The Swedish guy gave a shot to the Thai guys nether regions quite early on in the match and he tapped out after about 5 minutes!! We saw the Swedish guy having breakfast the following morning looking very happy with himself!! The whole evening was just a complete surprise for us - the third fight was between two kids who must have been about 8 years old! It was just so wrong encouraging them to kick the crap out of each other but they both did so well and it wasn't as violent as the other matches. It was a lot more entertaining as one of the kids was kind of dancing against his opponent (we were hoping for a dance off but we weren't so lucky) taunting him and then quickly dashing out of his way when he tried to punch him. But the best match of the night was the 'special match' where four guys came in to the ring and were all blindfolded - when the bell went it was crazy, they were just all punching mid-air and kicking each other at random - even the ref got a battering! We're really glad we got to see it as it was something we were both keen to do in Thailand and it was a bit like a show which made the evening even better!