I've now left the beautiful sunny islands where I was just relaxing & vegging to go to the extremely hot, humid weather of Bangkok.

Bangkok: I didn't spend much time in the city but it was nice to see the Grand Palace, Wat Po (Reclining Budhha) & just go venturing through the markets of Kho San Road and BMK shopping centre. As I had been expecting, Bangkok was a very hot city with tons of deceitful Tuk Tuk drivers that would hassle you everywhere you went. Everyone just seems to want to get your money by hassling tourists. This made me get out of there relatively quickly so I only spent one night then took the overnight train to Chiang Mai. The food markets were fantastic though!

Pai: Took a day trip to the beautiful small town north of Thailand to just hang out for a bit. As tourist season was low many tours were not running so I instead did some of these treks out in Chiang Mai instead. Myself and another traveller I had met earlier rented bikes & ventured out to the Lisu & chinese tribal villages where we got to see a few of the local tribespeople. Otherwise, we just wandered & hung out at local pubs/restaurants listening to live music & observing the culture. I coincidently bumped into an old trekker that I had met in Taman Negara...it's great how you keep running into the same people as you follow each others' paths.

Chiang Mai: Took a fantastic 3 day/2 night trekking trip out of Chiang Mai. First started off with a 2 hour drive on benches in the back of a pickup truck where all 11 of us got to know each other quite well - it was a great group of people. We then went to an elephant camp where we did some elephant trekking, then off to do some caving. Riding the elephants was quite scary at first, especially when our guide told me to get off the seat & right onto the elephant. Ours was a little tempermental making for an unstable/exciting ride but you eventually got used to it. We then trekked out to a Karen Tribe where we hung out with locals, ate great food & slept overnight. They were extremely friendly & the kids were easily entertained with our cameras. The next day was mostly consumed by a 6 hour hike; consisting of several tiring uphill journeys and trekking through the narrow paths of the ricefields but it was fun nonetheless. I can say that now that it's over & I realized how out of shape I now am! Swimming in the river, with a a beer in hand was well deserved. IEvenings were spent hanging out around the fire, talking and getting to know each other. This was always an entertaining crowd. The last day was started off with some bamboo rafting on pretty unstable rafts down some rapids & then swimming in a very powerful waterfall. Every activity we did surpassed my initial expectations of how much fun it was going to be! The trek was quite tiring but made me realize how hard-working these tribespeople were. They were always up early to head off to the rice fields or doing other work around their property as they are fully self-sustaining. While we were still sleeping, the locals would be up re-inforcing the bamboo raft for our trek or cooking our breakfast. We were also joined by a 15-year old boy that carried all our food while trekking through the jungle in flip-flops. This culture is quite amazing to see. The trek would be one of the highlights of my trip to date. I will likely be staying in Chiang Mai a few more days and then make my way over to Laos!