Tom:
Alright peeps? We've just finished trekking through the jungles north of Chiang Mai (in Northern Thailand). One of the highlights of our first month of traveling so far. The train journey from Lop Buri to Chiang Mai was 12 hours long overnight. On a third class train. On a bench. With no sleeping facilities. That was not cool. What was cool though was just before we finally arrived we met a Swedish girl (Therese) doing pretty much the same thing as us. So we stayed two nights in Chiang Mai and then went trekking. The group was mainly French (sacre bleu!) but there were two American guys - northern Californians (John and Pete) - so we had a lil' five person group. Trekking was tough at times and sleeping on bamboo slats is not good for your back, plus it was freezing at night and roasting in the daytime, but the experience as a whole was awesome. Orchid/butterfly farms, bat caves, bamboo rafting, elephant rides, waterfall swimming, white water-rafting and staying with the local tribes for two nights was included in the price, so a great time was had by all! Much love to those back home. TY

Nil:
Hey everyone! I'm so exhausted right now, the trekking was pretty hardcore (or I'm just not that fit - which is probably more likely). But it was totally worth it. We had a fantastic time meeting local tribes people, camping out in little jungle villages, the views were spectacular (that's when I could see them through the sweat!), best of all were the people on our trek, we really had an awesome time. I'm really sad to be leaving Chiang Mai, I think this city has a lot to offer travelers, and the people here are very friendly. We're off to Laos tomorrow via Chiang Rai, should make the Laos border town of Huay Xai by tomorrow afternoon and I think we're going to stay there overnight. We'll see what takes our fancy. Man, I love this lifetstyle.. coming home to a job is going to be hard! Lots of love xxxxxxxxx