Julia and I had a very excitable reunion in Bangkok airport on 4th Sept and barely drew breath for the first 48 hours as we caught up on all the gossip from home and the trip. Thankfully we are now more or less up to date and can spend minutes at a time not talking! We had a couple of days in Bangkok which is quite a crazy place. It is that much more touristy than Central America and the area we were staying was very hectic. Lots of you have probably been to Thailand so you know what I mean. It didn't take us long to realise you can't believe everything people tell you when you are getting around. We were proud of ourselves for spotting one of the favourite scams of tuktuk drivers within the first hour or so when they tried to tell us the Grand Palace was closed and offering to take us on a special tour in their tuktuk instead. Of course the Palace was open and it was amazing. The architecture of the temples is stunning and it's really interesting to see. We also saw the huge reclining Buddha which is 46 metres long. It was amazing! After Bangkok we took the overnight train north to Chiang Mai. A journey we were expecting to be hellish but that was actually not that bad. Chiang Mai is Thailand's second city and the base for lots of courses and trekking that can be done in the area. We did both - a cookery course which was great fun, and we managed to make some pretty impressive dishes which have convinced me that I am surely a really good cook and just haven't realised it all this time... We then spent a couple of days on a trek. The first day was spent walking for about 4 hours and visiting a waterfall, hot springs and a small Karen Hilltribe village. Northern Thailand is full of various hilltribes who still live very basic, poor lives. We spent the night in one of these villages where we all slept on the floor of a big traditional hut. Although the villagers were around and were friendly enough they didn't really have much to do with us and we were entertained by our guides instead who managed to talk us into a game of Ibble Dibble but without the alcohol. (For those who don't know you basically end up with charcoal all over your face). Very funny although considering there was no electricity and only a tap in the field to wash under it was pretty difficult to get off and I still have a slight grey sheen to my face! The second day we walked for an hour or so more to an elephant sanctuary where we went on an hour long elephant trek. We had done this already a few days before so lost some of the novelty although this time there were not enough elephants to have just 2 passengers and the mahout (guide) on each elephant so they suggested having one less mahout and one volunteer to sit on the elephant's head instead... so of course I volunteered and spent the next hour with my knees resting on an elephant's ears and my hands flailing over it's head! Actually it turned out to be quite comfortable after the initial fear of being so high up with nothing to hold on to. We are now on Phi Phi Don just off Phuket, the area worst hit by the Tsunami and the island where my parents were when it hit, so it is quite surreal seeing it now. We have done lots of imaging what it would have been like, and there is still quite a lot of evidence of the damage to the town which is only partially rebuilt but there are so many tourists here even though it is the rainy season which is a good thing. I find it slightly frustrating not being able to speak the language, after speaking Spanish in Central America, and we have only managed to pick up a few words. Fewer people speak English than i thought would. Or rather they speak enough to go with their job as long as you don't ask anything other than 'Pad thai please' or 'How much are these fisherman's pants?' We're met with a lot of blank faces most of the time but it's quite funny.Thailand is very different in general but I am really enjoying it and it's just a shame we don't have a bit more time to see more. Leaving here on Sunday to make the long trek to Cambodia where we are meeting Sam on Tuesday - hurray! xx