Hi all. I've made it to Bangkok finally. The city was not as chaotic as I had expected and was well worth spending a few days to explore. It's so easy to travel here as most people speak English and will drop everything to help you (the tuk-tuk drivers will give you directions even if you don't want a lift!). Everything here is cheap (which will be a great help in delaying my approaching return to Oz). The Thai people amaze me everyday with new levels of kindness that seem endless and the food is a sensation. After Bangkok I headed north to explore some forest and villages. 10 of us and 2 guides spent 3 days hiking north of Chaing Mai and staying in small villages along the way. The local villages were people who had fled Tibet or Burma at various times. They were great fun and the kids came straight to our hut to challenge us to a game of soccer (the English lads try to tell me it's football?!). It's very hot and humid here and you are bathed with sweat most of the time, but after an hour of soccer I was a wreck. The village kids weren't even sweating. The villages wanted nothing more from us than a smile (and a game of soccer) which is a pleasant change from some other places I've been this year. On the final day we put our feet up and let some elephants do the work for a while and then got on some Bamboo rafts for the final part. The rafting was a blast and by the end most people had cuts and bruises (thank Buddha for relaxed safety regulations, you can actually have some real fun) and our rafts were pretty much destroyed. I've just arrived in Chaing Rai and plan to go across the border to Laos tomorrow and get a slow boat down the Mekong River. I can only hope the people are half as great as the Thai people, because this country is travelling heaven.