Hi All or Sawadee kap as the locals would say... My tour group is quite small. There are six of us including myself and the tour leader. The other four are two couples. One couple is from Tippiery in Ireland (Brigette and Leonard) and don't drink (but they're "grand like, you know"). The other are a young couple (Tom and Ruth) who are very much in the first flush of love. Ruth only speaks to Tom and Tom communicates with the rest of the group. Perhaps she talks a special language. She's from Scotland but I'm sure she can speak English. All in all not a terribly exciting group but nice people. We left Bangkok to go to Chang Mai and as you can see from the pictures we got an overnight train with sleeper bunks. I was impressed by the way the seats turned into bunk beds, although I didn't sleep very well ("I'm too excited!") Chang Mai is the former capital of Thailand and the old city is surrounded by a moat. From there we did lots of stuff like visiting Doi Suthep temple and taking a Thai Cookery class. The latter I really enjoyed and I may have to inflict my Thai green curry on some of you when I return. Hopefully I can avoid setting fire to the kitchen. We went for a one day trek to see a hill tribe, do elephant riding (yes Jae, I know...) and a bamboo raft down a river. The tribes we visited were very poor but they live a kind of autonomous life not really part of Thailand. There were certainly enough tourists coming to see them to buy arts and crafts to keep them going. At times it felt a bit voyeuristic but I think we were sensitive and always asked permission before taking photos etc. I joked that perhaps they all go home in the evening to fabulous apartments and the hill tribe thing is for the tourists, but that didn't go down too well ('things you think, things you say - two different things!') I didn't enjoy the elephant riding although it was all included. I'd been warned about this by my friend Jae. They use a stick with a metal hook on the end to steer the elephant. When it doesn't do what they want they hit the elephant on the head with the stick or pull on its ear with the metal hook. Maybe elephants are big beasts that don't feel pain in the same way we do but to my (Western) eyes it wasn't very nice. The rafting was great fun and we saw what appeared to be some wild elephants roaming around the sides of the river, which was really cool. In the evening we had a Kantoke dinner which is a dinner given at weddings and special occasions. Afterwards we were treated to some traditional Thai dancing. There was some audience participation including two camp guys who joined much to everyone's amusement (no, it wasn't me... As I have screamed many times, I'm butch me!) Got a bus to Chang Rai, where we went to see the 'Golden Triangle'. This was the meeting point of Laos and Myanmar (Burma) and Thailand. We went to Laos for the afternoon. Tasted 'snake whiskey', which is literally whiskey with a dead snake in the bottle - yum! After we returned to Bangkok I went on a day trip to see the 'Bridge on the River Kwai'. Rode on the 'Death Railway' were thousands of PoWs and locals lost their lives building the railway during the WW2. Not fun as such but very interesting. In the evening I went out to dinner with an Allen & Overy colleague, Wasana, who helped me navigate a very nice Thai menu and didn't make me eat anything too spicy - thanks Wasana! The next day we did a tour of Bangkok canals by various types of boats including speed boats which was great fun. There are some very poor people who live by the river and it was interesting to see another side to Bangkok life. We were also taken to a temple which had a statue of Monkey, Tripitaka, Pigsy and Sandy (Matthew will know what I'm talking about!). I got very excited about this, jumping up and down and pointing but no-one else knew what the TV Series 'Monkey' was all about. We are now in Koh Pha Ngan in the south. Beach is lovely though weather not great at the moment. We have been very lazy here and it's a struggle to fill the time between meals (shame). There appear to be a pack of wild dingoes living on the beach. They don't bother anyone except when they come scrounging for food. My Dr told me to stay away from dogs, but that's proving difficult... There also appear to be giant killer frogs in the bushes. I've decided they are killer though I've no evidence for this except that they are the loudest frogs in the world and make a reverberating croak that you can hear halfway along the beach. Today I went for a walk over a headland to another beach, to see what was there and for something to do. On the way back I decided to take the scenic route, climbing around the rocks on the headland and following a sort of trail. Of course I ended up lost in what effectively was jungle. (Palm trees mean jungle to me, okay.) I was imagining the headlines in the local papers. "Tourist found dead in jungle - killer frogs suspected." When I stumbled out dripping with sweat, scratched, insect repellent in one hand and nearly empty water bottle in the other I seemed to be on a building site. Imagine my surprise when I discovered it was my own hotel. Somehow I'd got lost at the back of it...oh well. Decided I should try and squeeze one more country in before I come back to the UK so I am going to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat which everyone says I MUST do. Take care and thanks for all the messages. Back in the UK on 11 August. Ronnie xxx