With the girls being introuduced to Thailand and getting use to being away we decide it is time to move the trip on and show them the travelling life starting off with a small 14 hour bus journey to Chiang Mai.

We should have guessed that after paying a very cheap price for bus trip that we weren't going to be greated by luxary. However it still had a couple of wheels, a frame and reclining not so comfy seats. We had some strange characters on our bus that we had to keep one beady eye on but just because they were strange. However we made it through the night and arrived in Chiang Mai on schedule. The sun was just starting to warm the waking world and randomly we were being ushered off our bus and into minivans, worse still our group was being seperated but we were assured we were being transferred to the center of Chiang Mai.

We drove down a few alley ways none looking much like a city, until we came to a stand still outside a guesthouse (the randomness was I recognised our hostel from 5yrs ago!!). We all smiled and knew what had happened, Hana came out with a cracker refusing to let go of our bags or move from the minivan arguing in a sarcastic manner that he must be joking that this was the city centre. It didn't work much as we were kicked out, but being a big group we had already pre booked our accomodation which the landlady wasn't very happy about so wasn't so helpful. Having a few directions we swung our backpacks on our backs and made everyone enjoy the trekk carrying our worldly processions. We didn't get overly lost finding our little hostel called 'little bird guesthouse' just took a detour!!! It was still very early and we could t check in so we went and searched for some brekkie and then cracked onto booking our day tour. We all took it in turn to barter our trips down and settled with a great discount. Back at the hostel we booked in but spent the afternoon doing nothing but relaxing after our sleepless night reading our exciting books and drink "Chang".

The sky turned to dark and we all feeling a little happy and relaxed after our veers decides to freshen up for our evening entertainment of international "Mung Tai" boxing event. We are psyched as an English man is competing so we can back our home town. We head off to the night Market for a quick feed and then settle down by the ring side. We are in luck and have front row seats of the apprently big professional stadium that was just a ring inside a parking lot. We start with the youngsters that have huge fighting personalities, they show no mercy nor fear as they get stuck in kicking and punching each other every so often one would come out with an awesome move with a quick tackle to the ground. The referee made sure they were semi nice to each other making sure they didn't hit their heads too hard when they hit the ground. Unfortunately Rach & I took the red corner which although I like to think tried hard but still lost. Next up was a female fight which hard more dirt in it than the boys, we all backed the red corner girl as no one could be quite sure whether the blue corner was really a girl, plus she also had this horrible smirky face that I think made everyone want to punch her but again the blue won. We were enjoying the excitment with our Changs and randomly Hana who had chosen some Thai wine, but we were really looking forward to the "big fight". The big boys that were international competitors or as we saw it guys from home who had been out here training hard for months and now wanted to fight in an arena. They appeared on stage and they were very big in comprassion to the Thai boys, they did their little rituals around the ring the first being a Canadian. The stance of the fighters was very different too, the Thai's seemed more hunched over more relaxed more like a dirty fighter but also never looked out of breathe. The Candian guy was very tall and had a boxer stance he unfortunately got so cracking kicks and punchs in but was no match to the Thai guys spinning elbow shots to the face and after a few cracks the Canadian dripping with blood fell to the ground. The next fight had been cancelled due to not passing his doctors physical so it was time for our British guy. He was pastey White with all his random tattoos but he looked very buff and big again incomprassion to the Thai guy who this time looked older. The Thai's always looked like it was just a pass time for them not something they tried hard to be good at they just were. The referee brought the two men to the middle and started the fight. Our British guy was doing well and had the Thai guy on the run, punches were flying from our guy with the odd kick too but the Thai guy couldn't find anything to retaliate with. He knocked the Thai guy to the ground a few times but he always got up, he had managed to draw some blood from our British guy. However hard they kicked or punched each other neither seemed to flinch or look in pain after. But then things went wrong and in the second half I'm not sure what really happened but I think a little caught up the British guy may have punched the Thai guy in the face just after then referee had tried to pull them apart. The Thai then refused to fight saying it was a foul but the referee disagreed and declared the fight to British guy who didn't take it as a victory and continued to apologise to the Thai fighter, I still believe the Thai fighter who was very tired and hurt wanted an easy route out. After all our excitement and starting to feel the effect of lack of sleep we wondered home to prepare for our trekkig trip the next day.

Alarms ringing everywhere to ensure we all arise for our trip we silently prepare ourselves. It isn't really that early but a few of us feared for our lives balanced on the top bunks. We had meet two others Adam and Kelly who were joinin us for our 1 day tour of Chaing Mai. All the girls had said from day 1 was that they wanted to ride an elephant and see a waterfall and this trip had this and more. Hana & I had asked to pay the extra to visit the villages of the long neck people which was our first destination. We wondered through the village and learnt about the people, the rummour is they wear the gold bands round their necks to protect them from Tigers that would bite their necks but only of the females as the man is strong and Tigers fear the man. Now they were them to look pretty for men, they start wearing them from 5yrs old and they never take them off unless they decided to add another coil. They stretch to about 30cm, the neck piece is actually a gold rod that is wond around their neck, so they can't take it off. They did look beautiful they wore bright clothes and had make up on, none looked in discomfort in wearing the neck brace. We took some pictures and even tried on half of what they wear and boy it is heavy, so I became impressed for them. We saw some other tribes but it did look like a museum of real people their for just us, which was
Kind of true Thailand told them to move there and they would pay them. After our village tour we set off again in our little truck to the first tick of the girls list .... Elephant riding. We convices everyone to buy some sugar canes to feed their elephants and we got into our groups as the huge slow moving elephants wondered over to collect their passengers. We climbed on to the custom made seats and locked ourselves in. Then with a little jab and a kick from our grumpy elephant owner our big boy slowly plodded his way off to the shade. We rocked ever so slightly to the left and then to the right, our legs and feet dangling over his rough wrinkled skin his ears flapping up against our legs as we wondered our way down to the river for a little cool down. The elephants causiously stepped into the river, maybe it is still like us tipping our toes into unknown water. It couldn't of been that cold though as they were all soon slurpping up the water and squirting their bellies and sometimes even us. Our elephant hadn't notice we had food for him, but the others soon realised and we were surrounded with wandering trunks all wanting a bit of sugar. We feed a few but I still was holding out for our elephant. Once we were cool we went for a wander through the jungle, some elephants inculding ours used this time for some serious tree scratching, ours even had a good butt scratch. Everyone growing with confidence decided that they wanted to get closer to their elephant and so slid down to seat behind the ears. Some... Rachel found this a little difficult at first and near slid right off on the first step but we all got our tourist shot and were happy with our trekk. Coming to an end I had a quick chance to feed my guy some sugar before we went for our yummy dinner of you guessed it RICE!!! I didn't even get real chicken!!!

After some lunch it was time for our trekk to the waterfall. I'm not sure anyone was really up for the walk especially being midday and the heat was rising, but as soon as we got their we could cool down in the glorious waterfall. It was a short walk only 1 hour and we climbed over and through fallen trees, worked our way through the jungle and had a quick sling shot practice before we arrived. It was a secluded waterfall and it was obviously the only waterfall as trekks and tour groups arrived from everywhere but it was pictureque all the same. We whipped our sweaty clothes off and showered oursleves under the cascading water. We grabbed some Changs and enjoyed a beer in the beautiful surroundings. But we didn't have time to lye around drinking beer we had our rafting, so we whizzed our way back to the main river for a quick safety talk that none of us understood and jumped into our boats.

It was massive rapids but oh dear did we make a mess of it. My crew of Spud, Dave and Megan did find working our way paddling, jumping and being "on job!!" but the other team.... Hana, Rachel & Shereen well I think the guide did a lot of crashing and getting stuck on rocks. We did though make it our own trip and on some of the flat we splahed and then removed each other from our boats until everyone was in the water. Our boat attacked a lot of other boats splashing them with our oars but we came unstuck when we meet locals who had taken their tables and chairs into the river to start their New Year celebration and ambushed us too but it was all fun and forgotten with a friendly shoot of whiskey as we carried on down. After an hour or so we abandon our rafts and took to the Bamboo rafts to lazy our way the last few meters back to dry land and a lift back to the hostel for some warm clothes and a good scrub down.

It was a quick shower and early to bed for us all as we had a long trip to the border and our first country change and visa run, let's hope it is as smooth and none corrupt as possible.