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22nd june
this morning, jo, me and laura met down stairs in the lobby to get hiking over to our new hotel (which if u remember from the last blog we were meant to be there last night but we had to move from because of intrepid messing up) and arrived backpacks and all at about half 6 to get picked up from our new hotel to go on a trip to the floating markets, and river kwae. so after we got picked up we had a bit of a tour of bangkok before an hours drive out to the markets. after we had all had a nap on the way to the markets we got into longtail boats again and headed up the river to the markets. we got off the boats and had a walk along the market/river side before heading onto another boat which actually took us through the middle of the market. was really scary as our woman was very bolshy and we were getting battered around by a bunch of other boats. once we got going it was good fun thou. we tried these weird taco marshmallow things which were very yummy then after we got off the boat we stopped to have breakfast and then have a wander around the stalls. we then got back on the bus that took us to some cobra show which we didnt really fancy as the cages are tiny and the poor snakes creep me out to be honest so we ignored that and then waited to change onto a new bus. then we set off for lunch, again a nap before lunch and then food. then we headed to the tiger temple which was really sad as the tigers were all drugged up to the eyeballs so we sat outside doing our own little mini protest. i mean really... how can a wild cat be tame? no wild animal that is 'apparently used to human contact' will just keep sleeping while people move their bodies around so that tourists can have a good photo with a sleeping tiger?! it just doesn't happen! rant over! then we set off for the river kwae. this was really weird as we were expecting some big bridge in the middle of now where but were seriously dissappointed to find a huge market type thing set up all around it. really gutted. t\the bridge its self was good thou. we also had a look at the death and war museum. the models that they had were very graffic and a bit disturbing and the photos were just scary - the people in them looked awful. its scary to thing what they had to go through. then on the bus back home. we arrived at our new hotel to start our new part of the tour (our trip was slipt into 2 so we were about to go north and start the 2nd part and here we lost our really cool group and awaited a whole bunch of new people) so we checked into our room and jo had to come with us as the new person that she was meant to be sharing with had gone out and not left the key so she couldnt get in. me and laura then went on a tuk tuk tour of bangkok to get our washing only to discover that our washing had already been picked up by our old tour leader! then we headed over to koh san road for tea. we had a really nice phad thai and then headed back to the hotel to await our old group so we could all go for a drink to say farewell. we also had to meet our new tour guide who is thai. she is called arjun and is about as funny as something seriously unfunny! really she never smiled once and we counted how many days it took her to smile and it took 2 whole days with us! unreal!. anyway we met her learnt that the group was made up of a couple from auz that were our age, 2 35-40 yr olds and 3 70 + year olds! fun is definitly on the cards with this bunch.... we then met our old group, and hung out with them til 1 in the morning til we figured we really should go to bed. we also saw an elephant being led down the street trying to be fed rice etc off peoples plates which is not good for elephants! we then headed to bed.
June 23rd
up bright and early to catch a train from bangkok to the middle of now where so we could get a sangtow for an hour all the way to suckothai and spend the night in the new city. we arrived, dumped our stuff and headed straight for the pool. after chilling out a bit we headed to Na's house so we could have massages. me and jo had thai massage, while laura opted for the less brutal oil massage. got eaten alive by mossies but felt so much better after the massage. headed back to the guest house and then crashed out for tea. had a very nice tea and then crashed out in bed.
june 24th
nice and early start again and a seantow ride to suckothai old city which is basically a national park which is full of ruins and temples etc. so we hired bikes and cycled around and stopped and saw a bunch of old bricks and then messed around taking pics. i think we spent more time taking pic of us having a laugh then actually of the ruines! ah well. then we had a picnic lunch which was provided my Na and then we caught a 4 hour bus up to lanpang. at least this was aircon unlike the ones we got before which were stuffy and seriously lacking aircon. when we arrived in lampang we had an opportunity to go on a horse and cart ride around the city and see the sights. to be honest there wasn't that much to see but was good all the same. we then went back to the hotel and had a chance to go to the nightmarket which was fairly average and then got some food. headed back to bed via the internet.
june 25th
up and out and off to chang mai elephant reserve. we got to see them having a bath which was really cute as they seemed to want to drown their trainners! then we watched an elephant show where they moved logs, banged on drums, painted pictures and did other clever things. we got to feed them after as well and then we went for an elephant ride through the jungle. was very weird. but still brilliant. our elephant was determined not to do any walking but instead decided that eating half the jungle would be the way fwd!. got off the elephants and then went to have lunch. after lunch we went to see how paper was made.... from elephant poo! was a bit smelly and needless to say not many of us got our hands dirty giving that one a go. then we headed onto sangtows and went to see the elephant hosptial. we saw a baby elephant that had had part of his lower leg blown off in a land mine and was getting a prostetic one made to go on instead but he would have to live in the hospital forever.. awwwww. then we saw a bunch of other ill elephants - blind, deaf, mummys and babys, and another one that was missing half a leg. we then caught a sangtow up to the hills of chang mai to go to the hot springs which was fairly uneventful before heading off to our homestay. when we arrived we litteraly dumped our stuff and then relaxed before tea was served. was really nice and we had to eat from sitting on the floor. we had music to accompany us while we ate and most of it sounded like someone was strangelling cats. then we had a bit of a performance before being allowed to have a go of some of the instruments ourselves. this sounded even worse! after killing the music not very softly we then headed to the back of the house for a free massage and to watch some tradditional thai dancing. we also had a go at watching a lucky candle (which was the paper candle thing i talked about before the full moon party). then after chilling out we headed to bed where we had to crawl under mossie nets so we didnt get eaten alive!
june 26th
we got up early (the sun was up therefore we were up!) and went to offer food to the monks and get a blessing before we had breakfast. we then got on bikes and went for a tour around the village. we stopped off at a temple, a mushroom growing farm and learnt about growing muchrooms (that'll be very useful in future im sure) and also went to a shop that made really cool stuff so we bought some stuff (giving straight back to the community!) and then headed back to the homestay. we dumped our bags and then headed to the local school where we all had to take a class and teach them to say stuff in english and then we played some games and did some dances before going abck to the homestay for lunch and packing before getting in a santow and heading into changmai. we arrived in our hotel and after rearranging our room so jo and her matress could fit in our room we headed into town to dump washing and go for a swim. however the swim was cancelled due to the rain so here we are instead updating our blogs etc. only a week and a bit to go!!!!!!! xxx
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