After arriving at 9.30am we got a taxi to our hotel, another Centara (one last little bit of luxury!) We chilled out in the room for a few hours, and Clare fell asleep, while Helen made the most of the free movie channel. After relaxing, we walked through the old city and found a hostel, Pha Thai, to stay in for the next night. Walking back to our hotel we discovered a unique little shop selling oil paintings of proverbs on canvas (some more profound than others!) and each bought one. After dinner in the hotel we wandered round the night market before retreating for an early night in preparation for our elephant trek the next day…

This was the day we had been waiting for! After picking up the rest of the group (6 of us in total) we drove an hour up into the mountains and got dropped off. We trekked half an hour (in sweltering heat!) to a Mae Village and then onto Maewang Waterfall. We arrived at just the right time, being the only people there. We took a dip before continuing our trek to a Karen tribe village. Here we were greeted by adorable children trying to sell us bracelets for 5baht…of course we bought some! From here we were driven to the elephants…We bought a bag of bananas and were the first to begin our ride. At first, we thought we may have made the wrong choice as our elephant stopped every couple of metres and demanded bananas! We quickly realised that our elephant was actually a real character, despite trying to kill us twice, and we ended up having an amazing time. We were a bit apprehensive when the guide jumped off and left us to guide the elephant on our own but he took loads of pictures of us and allowed us to take his place at the front of the elephant-we definitely had the best elephant and the best guide! After this we went for lunch before heading off for bamboo rafting, where we got absolutely soaked by onlookers (mainly Thai children!) By the end of the day we were shattered but still found the energy for a couple of Reggae Bars and a club called Spicy….

The next day, we boarded our return flight to Bangkok, jumped on the AE2 to Koh San Road, and had dinner at The Roof before setting off on our 12 hour bus journey to Koh Tao….