Arrived in Chiang Mai at 2pm and got in a taxi.Chad one of the Candian guys we met on the bus to Laos said the best place to stay was Sky House. But none of the taxi drivers seemed to know where Sky House is. It turns out I cant read my own appaling handwriting and its actually SK House which everyone knows about, so we finally got there and managed to get a room, which was good. we then went to reception to book our 2 day trek and our train for Bangkok on the 17th!

Managed to get a two day trek for 1600 bhat (32 pounds). this including an hr elephant trek, walking, overnight stay in a tribal village, water rafting, bamboo rafting and all our meals and transport which was a good deal we thought.

That night we went to the Night Bazaar which is the city's biggest market. It is brilliant. I bought a lot of presents some cheap DVD's and Gem bought a pair of trousers. The haggling here is a lot easier than in bangkok so i managed to get some good deals! Mum you would have loved it!!

Trekking Day One

The next morning we got picked up at 9am for our trek. As soon as the guide arrived he pulled me to one side to tell me that everyone else had paid 2000 bhat each and so we had to pretend we had paid that too, so that everyone "stays happy".

On the trek was me and Gem, Kelly and Izzy (a couple from New Nealand), Tommo a Japanese guy travelling alone, Lela a Dutch girl who had come out to learn thai massage) and two french couples who all worked at a hospital in France. 2 Christines, Roland and Gerard. Then we had 2 tour guides Nicky and Bee

We arrived at the elephant camp and had lunch before going on the hr trek. Our elephant was called Elu and was 40years old, she was 6 months pregnant to Mutab the male elephant who was her toyboy at 26.

After the ride we started a gruelling 3hr trek to the Gutcap Village where the Lahoo tribe live. I think it was the hardest thing i have ever had to do, we were all so tired when we reached the top but Bee and Mikey our tour guides had barely even broken a sweat. They do the trek 2 to three times a week!! They are crazy!

When we arrived we all had freezing showers (as there is no electricity and the camp is run on solar power). then me and gem had our first Chang Beers of the trip..which went down surprisingly well considering both of us hate beer.

Whilst Bee was cooking tea we noticed a small fire on the other side of the hill, and were told it was stared by someone just throwing their cigarette away. By the time we had finished eating it was a full forest fire, and was spreading right across the mountain side towards a village. We were asll very panicky but Bee and the tribe couldnt care less. they said there are a lot of streams that will put it out and the villages are used to forest fires.

Dinner was gorgeous we had rice and Massaman (potatoes) curry and vegetables. And afterwards Bee got out a bottle of whiskey and his friend came out with a gituar and played payul weller, the eagles, the beatles etc! It was such a fantastic night. At one point Lela was explaining the finer points of being a single woman in Amsterdam to Bee and how a lot of the men think they are too good for her and how she finds it hard being single at 27...Bee did not understand a word and his reply was "if any of the single girls are cold tonight, you can share with me, no money no honey, no fun no babies!"...He then told us a story about how their was a lady boy in one of the villages and because they "didnt know if he was a boy or a girl" they paired him up with a single girl from another village and now they have 2 sons so it turned out he was a boy after all!! It was so funny. They actually treat lady boys as a third gender!

We all went to bed about 10pm in a cabin which had double beds and pillows, blankets and mosi nets. It was pretty dusty but brilliant at the same time!

Day two

The next day we were up at 8:30am...it is pretty cold on the mountain so noone braved a cold shower. The fire had burnt out on the hill but it was really smoky and hazy all the way acrosds the mountain.

After our breakfast of tea, toast, boiled eggs, jam and watermelon we headed down the mountain. This was nearly as bad as going up because there are so many leaves on the floor it makes it really slippy. After about an hour we stopped for abreak at a gorgeous waterfall, where a few people had showers. We then walked for another hour, before getting to the water rafting place. We had 2 rafting teams we were with Tommo and Izzy and Kelly...Rafting was great fun and not as scary as I thought it would be. Then we did about half an hour on a baboo raft, but our tour guide kept trying to tip the raft and porr tommo didnt get the concept of shifting his weight so kept falling in....Eventually he said "tommo not ok" so the tourguide stopped and let him dry off!

After we had lunch we headed back into Chiang mai for hot showers and food! At one point during the rafting we stopped for food and for some reason i braved eating some pork thing! Some of the guys ate intestines so i dont even want to know what i had! Tommo ate a raw crab as well but had to spit it out because it tasted so bad! Anyway whether it was the food or I swallowed some water in the river I was quite poorly the next day and all the way on the train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok!

On our final day in Chiang mai we went to visit Tiger Kingdom. It was the best day ever! We found some crazy guy called Eddie who referred to himself in the 3rd person to drive us there and back for 4 pounds. King Kingdom is a reserve where you get to go in with the Tigers and stoke and lie with them. We went in with 3 babies, Lookshin (meatball), Kao Neaw (sticky rice) and Sai Aui who were all 5 months old. We then went in with 2 sisters and a brother who were 11 months and called Champoo, Paula and Mikey. There was 2 baby lion cubs as well called simba and dev who we could have gone in with but it was 10 pounds and you can really go near them because they are so young and not really trained so they could do some pretty serious damage!

At 6pm we boarded the night train to Bangkok where we are meeting Mac and Alice. The beds were huge and really comfy so i slept fo about 12 hours and woke up in Bangkok feeling a lot better!