After a sad good bye at Manchester airport Beth and I arrived in Bangkok early on the 6th September! We managed to get a taxi to take us to Rambrutti (Khao San Road) where we had our first nights accomodation booked. We only spent two days in Bangkok and did the typical touristy sight seeing, only we managed to get scammed by a 'friendly' local who told us that the Grand Palace was closed at Lunch time so we should go and see some other temples...we went along with it and ended up at a tailors, not the palace!! The nightlife in Bangkok was very lively, especially on Khao San Road which is mainly full of young backpackers. We've been sampling the street food and its sooo tasty and extremely cheap, around 60p for pad thai noodles! The fried crickets and beetles however did not look appealing!

From Bangkok we started to head up North by train stopping in Aytuthaya. The train system is very different from the UK, they tend to put different times on peoples tickets and instead of the train leaving on time they wait for a good hour to fill the train up until its completely crammed and the ladies selling food and drinks can no longer walk down the aisle! In Aytuthaya we rented out bikes for the day and saw some more temples and elephants! The hostel we stayed in was actually someones house and they rent their rooms out, it felt really homely and we got looked after really well. We met 5 Irish girls here and ever since we keep bumping into them, its nice to see a familiar face.
From Aytutyaya we got a one hour train to Lopburi, a small town which has been taken over by monkeys. The locals feed the monkeys and cant harm them in any way as they are protected by the King. There are literally thousands of them hanging from the cables, sitting on the temples, walking on the road and some jumping into the back of cars! One monkey touched my leg and after that we decided we'd had enough! In the evening we got a sleeper bus to Chaing Mai.
Chaing Mai is beautiful. We booked onto a three day trek which was absolutely AMAZING...In the morning we met out guide and the 13 people on our trek - the 5 irish girls, a couple from Munich, two Belgium girls and a boy and a girl from Amsterdam. The trek started with a one hour ride on an elephant through the jungle and then the hard work began! We walked for about three hours in the blistering heat and made it to a very welcoming waterfall! We swam and relaxed for about an hour and then started trekking again until we made it to our homestay at 5 o'clock! We all slept in a big dorm room which was like a treehut and the views were incredible (i'll put some pics up) In the evening the locals cooked us some delicious food and we sat round the campfire with a few well deserved beers. We experienced our first hole in the ground for the toilet....interresting to say the least!! We also showered with cold water and a bucket!!
the next day we walked all day and in the evening arrived at another waterfall which is where our base was for the night. We were in the middle of the jungle using the waterfall to shower in and sleeping on a thin mat with a mosquito net! The next day we made our way back walking until the afternoon...we then got onto bamboo rafts and floated down the river where our tuk tuk was waiting for us!
In the evening we all met up and had a big night out!
Currently I'm in Pai, its three hours away from Chaing Mai. Its extremely hippie...dreadlocks and the jamaican flag everywhere you look! So now i'm sat in an internet cafe and then heading back to our luxury two pound hostel! xx