We arrive at Julie Guesthouse with one thing on our mind......food!!! The guy behind the reception gets stroppy with us when we aren't paying attention to how our bill book works and slams it back in the rack, oops! (you get little books here that you write in when you help yourselves to something from the fridge, how very trusting!). All glad to be back in the land of coconut curries, chang beers, fruit shakes and pancakes we enjoy lunch in an incredibly posh but cheap restaurant where the rice got served with it's own little banana hat that I decided to put on my head (what it's nearly christmas!!). All exhausted from the last few weeks of travelling we amble around until dinner time when we enjoy carafe's of wine and Italian food, justified as it's our last night with Viv, boo hoo!

The next day after about 12 hours of sleep slightly recuperated we head to tiger kingdom to cuddle baby tigers. We opted for newborns (4-6wks) very cute, but they were a bit sleepy which we hope was because it was hot and early in the morning as opposed to them being drugged, I don't think they were as the keeper did tell us to go careful as they could bite, yikes!! We got to hold them, sit with them and take photo's, one even cuddled into Sharon's leg as she took a video of them, so very cute.. All of this for the bargain price of 10 pounds, Mandy you would have loved it I was thinking of you! That afternoon we spent on the more pressing but not so exciting matters, planning. we need to book our flights to Oz which meant deciding our route through Malaysia. All done though and I will be able to meet up with Linds for a couple of weeks on the West coast, hoorah! To celebrate our organisational skills after waving goodbye to Viv, Sharon and I head for fish and chips, I know you can take the girl out of Bournemouth... and phoned home which was very overdue. The next day after another mammoth sleep we head out after a breakfast of porridge (we are still in Thailand honest) to get a pedicure and sit and relax. It's short lived though as an afternoon bus to Lampang follows and so the journey continues..

1 1/2 hours later we arrive in Lampang and check into a really sweet French guesthouse a gorgeous room and head into town to try and find out how we can book to play with the elephants. Also a sweet little town apparently home of the white roaster and the only place in Thailand to have retained the horse and cart (mainly for tourists though!). We find only a clock tower a giant picture of Thailand's king with a mini colourful water fountain display lighting it up (they absolutely love their king in this country there are shrines everywhere!) and dinner. We head back for an early night and decide to head to the elephants under our own steam in the morning. After one of Thailand's amazingly cheap local buses later we get dropped on a triple carriageway on the opposite side of the road to the sanctuary so a mad run for it later we arrive at the ticket booth only to find that there is only one elephant left, not wanting to part with 100 pounds to share one between us we opt just to go into the park and have a look around. We watched the elephants bath, fed them sugar cane and banana's, watched a show, rode on elephants through the jungle, visited the hospital (one poor elephant had stepped on a landmine, but it had recovered the only thing to show for it was a hole in his foot, bless him!!) and visited the elephant dung paper making factory (paper was indeed made out of 100% elephant poo. nice!). An action packed day of elephant fun all for less than 1 pound!

Our onward journey started with the most random tuk tuk drivers ever, one who decided to carry out the annual service on his tuk tuk whilst we waited in the back,we only put up with 5 mins of this before abandoning him in search of another, and the next who we assume was totally drunk and decided to do his weekly shop on the way, well a bit of an exaggeration but he did buy us each a coke for our troubles. Then came the best bus ever, double width seats, leg rest (adjustable), massage unit in the seat with heaters, neck pillows and blankets. Cakes, Drinks and a food voucher for the VIP canteen at a bus station en-route. We were officially happy with our royal transportation south to somewhere we think of like home Soi Rambuttri, Bangkok! .(By the way I'm sure I could write a book on buses in Asia if anyone is interested!)