Having been invited by Jill's uni mate Chris to go & stay with him for a few days in Hanoi, we all jumped at the chance to see another country that we hadn't originally planned on visiting & hey, who are we to turn down free accommodation?! Chris is currently living out there teaching English & assured us that we could get cheap return flights so it didn't take long for the three of us to all vote in favour of this little detour adventure....

10th NovWith our main backpacks safely stored at Rama, we set off with our small packs (praying that we hadn't forgotten anything essential to help us survive our jungle experience) & took a 2 hour bus ride to an elephant trekking trail. Carly had come down with food poisoning the night before & had to stay back at Rama - so I got an elephant to myself. This was all fine & good until, my guide also decided to hop off & leave me to it! After I ...

We left Rama in Chang Mai bright & early with our small packs & 3 days worth of clothes etc. Took a 4 hour bus up North to Thaton, where we were spending one night at a beautiful riverside guesthouse (in the middle of nowhere). After lunch, while the rest of the group took off to see yet another temple - me, Lin, Jill & Abby plumped for beers & card games down by the river & spent a very enjoyable afternoon playing cheat, rummy & s***head!...

We left Kanchanburi bright & early to catch a bus heading North. After 2 hours we transferred to another bus & 2 hours after that, we arrived in Ayuthaya - which up until approx 220 years ago used to be the capital of Thailand. This was just a flying visit so while some of the group went to visit the Buddhas, we chilled at the guesthouse where we'd had lunch (it was too hot & if you've seen a couple of Buddhas - you've seen them all!)We le...

Ok, have to back-date this a little bit...on the 5th Nov we transferred to a hotel called the New World Lodge which was about 5 min walk from where we first stayed in Bangkok. Wasn't as luxurious but still pretty nice, only downer was that Jill was put in a twin room with a random as there were 12 people taking part in the Intrepid tour. But Abby (from Glasgow) turned out to be lovely & has become a good mate so was all good in the end. We attended our w...