What ho chaps! Writing this from Chiang Khong in the North of Thailand where we arrived today and hope to cross over the border into Laos tomorrow. We plan to spend the next few days cruising along the Mekong River in a boat. We returned back from our jungle trek a couple of days ago, smelly, sleep deprived and aching but actually had a really good time. The rest of the group were nearly all German or Austrian apart but they all spoke English which made us feel very ignorant for our complete lack of linguistic skills - however we did learn how to say vomit in German which should come in handy! We noticed that the speed with which they claim all the sun loungers on the beach was matched by their eagerness to bag the tastiest sleeping quarters and we had to keep on our toes to make sure we secured ourselves a decent spot! The scenery in the jungle was really beautiful and lush although most of the time we had to look down at our feet for fear of tripping over a tree root and falling into the abyss - there were a couple of close calls! The hills are freezing at night and we had to heap piles of blankets on top of ourselves to keep warm. Every night we had a camp fire but none of the Germans knew the words to 'Ging Gang Goolie' which I was very disapointed about! I think the high point for us was the elephant ride. They are really playful and rip baby trees out of the ground as you go along and crunch them up like bits of straw. The bamboo rafts were kind of scary as they kept getting dragged over rocks which started to pull them apart and our feet kept slipping through the gaps. Paul very nearly got his foot ripped off on some rocks! Gotta run now. Hope everyone is ok. Paul and Linda xxx