Chiang mai is amazing it is like a scaled down bangkok with no hassle, yesterday we went round the market and had a propper look round and there was no people hassling or begging, we were walking past this hat stall when this little dude come up to us and asked if i would arm wrestle so seeing as the bloke was 3 foot and built like a s*** brickhouse i went for it then his mate put his arm on the table, the dude was massive so i thought i was going to embarass myself but in true dolf lundgren style thai dude was left with no dignity beig beaten by me :D. We also bought a few pressies for people back home nothing too big but pressies none the less i sooooooo wish i could have sent a crate home for yous lot everything is stupidly cheap, today was a realy good day we went out on to an elephant sanctuary and got to know the elephants i cant remember my elephants name so i just called him bumba, in the morning we got to know the basics on how to talk to elephants like left right back stop, and then we got to ride them i was first in the que and i walked up to the elephant and said soong he raised his knee and then lifted me up onto his back like ace ventura, then went round some trees and got off, becky was not so ace ventura and clambered up onto poor bumba with a big nervous face on her and done it round the trees, she was dead brave, and then done the most graceful dismount ever luckily enough there was me and two other blokes to catch her. We had dinner in this little bamboo hut and met some other travellers from israel and austria they were cool enough and spoke good english, next we got to ride the elephants round the hills which was one of the best parts of the trip bumba wasnt much of a race elephant he mostly drank out of puddles and eat bamboo refusing to listen to anyone, it was quite scary i was sat behind his head and with no saddle or rope its quite hard to stay on a bit like a slow moving bucking broncho,then we went down to the pools, our host was called bit (bee-t) and he has the best job ever playing with elephants all day he was quite cool he rode the elephants into the pool and we played with them and washed them with their periscope trunks. Theyre very attentive and aware of people, and as a was sat on bumbas washing him he decided he was wet enough and jumped up and went for a walk oblivious haha,