I deceded to wait for a speedboat instead of the slowboat. The quicker I left the better. I waited until 1pm at the pier, and had to go and complain that I wanted to leave, I think they were waiting for more people to join the boat, luckily another boat arrived from Luang Prabang, that was heading for the Thai border, so I joined that! This is where I met some new friends, and Irish girl (I cant remember her name) and a Korean girl called 'Minjin'. As soon as I heard her name, all I could think in my head was - its a good job her name isnt 'Minjout' otherwise i'd have burst out laughing in her face.

We arrived at the Thai border with minutes to spare before it closed. The Irish girl wanted to go to Chang Rai, where you can go to the golden triangle (where Burma, Thailand and Laos join together) but I was running out of time, so decided to go straight to Chang Mai and do my trekking there. Minjin was headed that way too, so we decided to travel together. The only way of getting there that night was to get on a 5 hour a/c minibus for 250 baht.This is a lot as the local bus would have only cost about 20 baht, but we didnt want to have to spend a night at the border town. As it happened, we were the only 2 on the bus. It was pure luxury, it was air conditioned with plenty of room to spread out, even room to lie down and sleep. We arrived into Chang Mai at 11.30pm and were so tired we just went into the first hotel we could see.

The next day we went temple sight seeing, and saw about 4 temples. I had started to get a bit templed out, but these were deffinatly the best i'd seen so far. They included one on top af a hill, which we caught a bus to (had learnt from the last time not to try and walk). You could see all over Chang Mai from up there, including the airport, which only just looked big enough to launch a paper plane from.

That night we thought a bit of culture was in order. We booked onto a local dinner and dance show. It was very interesting, it included the 'nail dance', 'wedding dances' and some nutta who kept playing with knives and fire on sticks'. The food was good, and I was glad I could do it with Minjin. It would have been a bit sad to have done it on my own.

I checked the calander and decided I didnt have much time left. I had to see Bangkok and get down to the beaches, which meant I didnt have time for a full 3 day trekking experience. Minjin was also running out of time, her flight home was 4 days before mine. We both found a trip which included - trekking, elephant riding, seeing local villages, white water rafting and bamboo rafting - all in one day. It was a lot to do, but we decided at least this way we got to try a bit of everything.

It was a crazy experience meeting the elephants. Normally I only get to see them in a zoo, on the other side of a compound. Here I actually got to touch one, and sit on its back. Proper BO! We also went to see a 'long neck' tribal village. We were told the people used to wear the rings around thier necks and knees to protect themselves from Tiger bites, but nowadays there just for traditional purposes. Im all for keeping with tradition, but they really didnt look comfortable. The rafting was brilliant, white water and bamboo, this is where we teamed up with Ashley from South Africa. To be honest he was a bit annoying. He thought he knew everything and kept talking, but it was nice to have more company.

When it was time to leave, Minjin wanted to take more time and stop off at few places before she arrived in Bangkok. I wanted to make a brief stop in Lopburi. I had heard that the place was over run by monkeys, that I just had to see! I went to the train station and caught the last 11hr train of the day to journey south.