We crossed the border into Thailand where this time they only wanted us to stay for 15 days rather than the usual 30. We of course take this news happily and thank the lovely immigration officer for his service - OK, so we fought with him which resulted in him closing the border until we left.. We can't quite work out whether he was correct or not, as some people are getting 15 days, others are getting 30, but we can't do anything about it, other than visit Burma just befoire xmas so we can get another 15 days on re-entry so we can spend xmas here.

When we arrive in Chiang Mai, Carrie, Viv (our friend from Vietnam) and I get the bus to Chiang Rai so we can go trekking in the jungle. We stay in this small mountain village and choose the VIP bungalow. It did have a lovely bathroom but the main selling point for me was that the walls touched the ceiling so that the monkeys, mozzies and other general jungle creatures couldn't make their way in while we were sleeping!

We set off first thing with Ahmer - our local guide who has lived in this tribe his whole life - up the mountain which was pretty hard going. After an hour and a half we stop for lunch. Thinking that we'd only really just had breakfast we didn't think this was such a great idea. Little did we know that we would be making the dinner for the next 2 hours! Ahmer lit the fire which Viv and I were to look after while he and Carrie went off to chop bamboo. When they returned we made cups out of the smaller bamboo stalks, and the larger bamboo stalks were used for the cooking. We had noodle soup with veg and omlette (although unfortunately this exploded) and tea. The veg was cooked in a bamboo stalk while the noodles were placed in banana leaves in the ground along with boiling water. It was so tasty. Ahmer later showed us how to cook sticky rice using the same bamboo method but this time over the camp fire and it was the best we have ever tasted.

All the way through the jungle Ahmer is picking fruit and shoots for us to try. Unfortunately the jungle wasn't that spectacular but it was good excercise and there was a cute waterfall on the way back. Later on we had dinner round the camp fire and Ahmer sang tribe songs to us. It was really beautiful - I'll try and upload the video, I was trying to get him to go to a recording studio, explaining that he could be an international star, but I dont think he really knew what I was talking about!

Anyway, next day we get on the back of a rather bumpy pick up truck clinging on for dear life with a bunch of really rude french people and head to Chiang Mai.