My 4th entry.

Near death experiences: 1 - Number of new injuries: 0 (surprise surprise) - Number of mozie bites: 0 - Number of manhandlings: 0

(23rd jan) i managed to get up in time for the mini-bus to pai. after 3 hrs of curvey roads where the driver was going round fast, i managed to arrive in pai not throwing up. i remember getting off the bus and going now what! i walked to a little street stand and got myself a drink. within 2 minutes of receiving my fruit shake, 2 guys joined me at my table. they asked me what i was planning on doing and i replied 'i haven't got a clue'. they told me to head over a bamboo bridge to a place called the twin huts. As i got there they said they were full (i was checking other places on the way and found that they were full too). i asked them if there was anything they could offer me and i told them that i was prepared to stay in the reception hut, so they offered me a tent. the rest of the day i walked round the town and got something to eat. later in the evening, i met loads of people staying at the huts round the campfire and got talking to them. there were 2 canadians (brothers, one decide to go blind for some meditation thing, caleb and josh), 2 english girs (singer/songwriters, blonde and cara), 2 americans (both are called scott, they aren't friends, one was about 20 and the other was about 55 ish) and 1 crazy dutchman (boris).

(24th) i sat down in the chillout area and started to have breakfast and some of the others started to join me for breakfast. the plan for the day was to go for a 7km hike to a waterfall and then go on to the reggae festival after dinner. well that didn't plan out. older scott and i set off about 10.30 to head for the waterfall after 4 hrs hiking over rocks, climbing up riverbanks and trekking through the river several times we still hadn't made it to the waterfall. we decided to take a break and as we did we saw something shining in the water. we took a closer look and i shouted on the top of my voice 'i'm standing on a gold mine' 'i'm rich!'. i wish we discovered it was fools gold. damn...i still need to find a rich husband! as we started to carry on, a english guy called teddy joined us. after half an hour my sugar levels dropped, so the boys carried on without me. so i sat down and munched on an energy bar. it seemed like hours when by, by the time the boys came back. they had to go another mile and the hike was got a lot harder. once the boys met up with me again we started to head back down the river as it was getting late and we didn't want to be stuck in the jungle at night. after walking for 10 mins, older scott said 'lets go up this bank here, there is a path a the top'. i wished to god that i didn't, it was very steep and in some areas it was almost like rockclimbing. after 10 mins going up the mountain he said that we couldn't go any further and it was too much (scott it a very experienced rock climber and he couldn't do it). we had to go back down the way we came, as i turned around to start heading back down the mountain a crapped myself. i started to slowly head down the mountain and slipped about a meter, scott had to grab me and stop me from going any further. once i stopped i got a bit emotional and scott calmed me down. eventually we got to the river bank again and i had to stop myself from falling apart. we carried on down the river and scott suggested another path, both teddy and i told him we weren't going up there, so we all carried on down to the bottom. we made it out of the jungle just before it got dark. after dinner cara was asked play live in a bar before the main act came on, so all the people staying at our huts went along to support her. We didn't make it to the festival.

(25th jan) got up and met everyone for breakfast, during breakfast blonde tried to convince me to get another tattoo (done by bamboo) as she was going to get one done. i was tempted, but didn't get on in the end. i made the mistake the night before telling eveyone that i did massages. so most of the afternoon was spent giving back massages. again we didn't make it to the festival, instead we all went out for dinner and came back to the campfire. i'm glad really, i heard that it was thai people singing and they can't sing. besides, young scott and cara provided the entertaiment and were singing and playing their guitars for most of the night.

(26th jan) i said goodbye to everyone and headed for chiang rai. on the bus i got talking to an ozzie guy and discovered he used to work with suzy. when i turned to face him properly he said that he had seen photos of me and remembers me from suzy's stories...i apparently i'm famous at their company. not sure if that is a good or a bad thing! anyway i eventually reach chiang rai and headed for akher river guesthouse only to discover it was full. i got talking to a thai guy called tee (young scott told me about him) who was a trekking guid. i booked to do a 2 day trek with him for the next day. i ended up in a guesthouse just down the road. i ended up sharing a room with a young french girl. during dinner i got talking to an ozzie lady, she was 44 years old and had travelled the world on her own. she is single no kids and is a nurse who works 3-6months of the year and travels the rest of the time. what a life...do i really want kids??? do i really want to move to australia??? i'm really enjoying travelling!

(27th & 28th Jan) tee picked me up about 10am and we hit it of straight away as we got talking we called each other 'ting tong' it means crazy. there were 2 russians (looked like hurley and sied from the tv show lost) and a couple from switzerland. the first day started off with a boat trip down the river where we stopped to have lunch and some of the group went for an elephant ride. i met another couple during lunch that was also doing a trek, but was ensure what was happening because they were told that there were doing a trek south of the river and the trek started north of the river. after lunch we started out trekking, over rice and veggie fields, through villiages and all the time going up hill. i was a hard trek and 5 mins before we reached a waterfall my sugar levels crashed. i told tee what was going on and everyone heard so out came the snacks and the redbull (i'm loving the thai redbull, no it wasn't the one that has drugs in it). i pretty much inhaled the redbull to which tee said 'oh my buddha' it gave me such a energy boost i was ready to go after 10mins. after the waterfall we carried on up a hill to a view point. the view of the mountains was so beautiful and just as we walked round the corner we saw the village that we stayed in overnight. i was so glad to reach the village. 4hrs of trekking all up hill was hard going! i was amazed to see dogs, cats, roosters, pigs and cows all live together and they weren't attacking each other. our entertainment for the evening was the kids, kittens and puppies, oh yeah and one drunk man who we found out later was trying to sell us opium (no we didn't before you ask).

from 3.30am i was woken up by roosters, don't they know the time in thailand? where is a gun when you need one? during breakfast tee said that the trek was going to be easier. after 2 hrs pretty much going up hill we eventually reached a village and stopped there for lunch. after lunch the trek appeared to be going down hill. we reached another village which was chinese and they were celebrating chinese new year. they asked if we wanted to join them, tee told them later as we were going to another waterfall and had to come pass them on the way back. the waterfall was beautiful and true to our word we joined the chinese villagers for an hour. the russian boys made me laugh as they must have had 1/2 a bottle of rice wine with the chinese men. gambi! once was enough for me. we all got dragged up to dance with the villagers, it was a simple dance, but do you think any of us got it! after the chinese village we got picked up and went to the hot springs to relax and ease our aching muscles before we headed back to chiang rai. that evening i went out for dinner, the guesthouse i was staying at was a bit out of the way and i wasn't sure which way the main area was. i bumped into an english guy called tony to which i was invited to join him for dinner and drinks. the coolest thing that night was that we found a bar that had connect four, so we played for a few hours and headed home.

(29th jan) i thought that i would have gotten a good night sleep after being on the trek for 2 days. well i was wrong. i had to pick a guesthouse that roosters as residents, so againi was woken up a stupid o'clock in the morning. i eventually got myself out of bed and packed to head north. i checked out of the guesthouse and started to walk up the path to the so called road. as i turned to join the road a tuk tuk turned up to dropped some people off. i haggled on a price for him to take me to the bus station as i couldn't be bothered to walk 20-25 mins with my backpack to the bus station. it wasn't obvious where i got the bus ticket and a bus driver pointed to the last lane tucked round the corner and said 'you have to get ticket on bus'. before i jumped on the bus i went to a food stand and had some noddle soup...yum yum! i was very special in the bus journey to chiang khong. i kept hearing from people that the local buses were horrible and uncomfortable. i had not problems with my trip...i expected to be on the bus 3-4hrs and it only took 2.5hrs to get there. once the bus stopped the driver told me to head up the street 2km to the main area of the town. i don't know why but once the bus drove off i had an emotional moment and called claire (best friend). i think it was due to the fact that i was close to crossing into another country on my own and didn't know what to expect. it seems really strange not travelling with claire. i pulled myself together jumped in a tuk tuk and got him to drop me off at one of the travel agents in town. i wasn't sure what to do, so i decided to get some advice. as i walked in to the office area there was an english girl called cat booking a ticket. i asked her what she was doing and she told me that she booked a ticket for them to pick her up, take her across the river to laos and booked the 2 day slow boat down the mekong river. the thai lady in the office looked at me and i said 'same same!'. the travel agent even took me to a guesthouse and arranged a room for me. before i left the travel agent i got talking to an english man called charlie who lives there and arranged to meet up with him for a drink. i think i met up with charlie about 3-4pm and went to pick up his daughter from the babysitter (a lovely old thai lady called sussie, if anyone wants to stay at a tradionally thai house please let me know and i'll give you her contact details). anyway we went out for dinner and after dinner met up with some local thai boys that had moved up to chiang khong from bangkok. one of them made jewellery and the other did tattoos, no i didn't get one done, however i was given a ring as a present. as the evening went on i discovered that they both fancied me and was agruing who was going to walk me home. i do pick them and no i didn't pull either of them.