Happy Christmas! The BBC tells me that it's raining in England - so no white Christmas. Needless to say it's roasting hot here (despite all the Thai people here claiming it's cold.) I've got a spare 1/2hr or so before our Christmas party so I thought I'd update you all on what I've been up to. I didn't stay in Bangkok too long, the elections were looming and as it was the first one since the coup I was advised to leave the capital "just in case". At the airport in Auckland I met another backpacker (Gary) who was staying at the same hostel, so we wandered round Bangkok together for a few days doing touristy things (market, Wat Po, trip up the river) before I headed north to Chiang Mai and he headed even further north to Laos.

I was suggested Spicy Thai hostel in Chiang Mai as a place to stay - and I'm so glad I took up the tip! Although it's a bit out of the centre the owners are brilliant and I've met some more great people :-) I spent my first day her just wandering round the town and looking at a couple of the Wats (temples). The next day a group of us went off on a 2day trek into the hills - starting with visiting one of the hill tribes called Longnecks. And yes, that is exactly what it sounds - the women gradually add metal rings round their necks, stretching them...

After that we had a chance to ride an elephant for an hour, which was brilliant fun -although we all got absolutely soaked (the elephants decided they wanted to cool off when we got to the stream, and sprayed water all over their backs...and all over us) Then we hiked through the jungle for a few hours before arriving at a hilltribe village in the hills where we spent the night. The following day we hiked some more, before doing some "white water rafting" - sadly there hasn't been any rain for a while so the rapids weren't as exciting as the ones in NZ, but it was good fun all the same.

Yesterday I did a 1/2 day course in foot massage/reflexology, which was really interesting (and harder than it looks). I was told by the teacher not to forget to practise, and I'm sure I wont be short of volunteers to practise on! Last night Pong (hostel owner) took a group of us out to the Chiang Mai cultural centre for an evening of traditional food and dance performances, which was great fun.

This afternoon we have our Christmas BBQ (not exactly your traditional Christmas, but should be good fun!) and we've done a Secret Santa which we exchance this evening. We all had to spend 100 Baht (about 1.50 GBP), which sounds like nothing - but over here everything is so cheap that it was actually difficult to spend that much!

I leave Chiang Mai tomorrow and am planning to head to Chiang Rai further north - the original plan was to head south to an island, but almost everything was booked up by the time I got round to organising it...

Lots of love and Christmas cheer,

xxx