So Louise arrived safe and sound - hurrah! And we were so looking forward to starting our trek in Chiang Mai but first we had a day spare to look round the city and go and see (even more) temples!

Day 1

We arrived really early off the sleeper train and as soon as we stepped foot on the platform we were bombarded with people from guest houses trying to get us to go with them. Kelly met a woman who claimed to have a nice place near the city walls with a pool etc and 3 beds in a room, so we went with her along with the 2 German guys we met on the train. Her place was really nice and yes she did have a pool. The only drawback was that she expected one of us to sleep on the floor on a mat! That was her definition of an extra bed! After some complaints we managed to get them to wheel a bed into the room and we decided not to do the trek with them so we wandered the towm looking for a travel agent.

In between trying to book our trek we took a walk through the city which is surrounded by a huge wall like Xi'an in China only a lot smaller. We went to 2 temples - Wat Phra Singh which the Lonely Planet told us would be amazing but really wasn't that great. It rained so much and we spent most of the time sitting under a tent in the car park! The temples here have monks that sit so still in the temple at first we thought they were statues. They have actual statues of monks as well so it can all get a bit confusing and dare I say creepy! The second temple was Wat Chedi Luang which was a lot cooler and looked like it was in ruins. There were loads of monks walking around the grounds and it felt a lot more traditional.

Chiang Mai is kind of a sleepy town, very clean and pretty, a million miles away from Bangkok its definately a lot more upmarket. We'd had our fill of temples so we decided to go and get a tuk tuk to Tiger Kingdom where you pay 8 quid to have your photo taken with tigers! The tuk tuk ride was worth 8 quid in itself, was so fun! We went whizzing down the motorway, it was my first tuk tuk experience (I think!) At Tiger Kingdom we chose to have our picture taken with the medium sized tiger and when we went in there we were absolutely s***ting ourselves! It was massive! But it was lying there so still it was obviously sedated. I felt really sad about it and even though we still had lots of photos with them I wouldn't go back again. You could see the park guides trying to coax them up with sticks but the tigers just looked half out of it and stoned (and knackered!)

But then...I was having my photo taken with one on a log and the photographer told me to lean on it with my head on my hands. As I did the tiger suddenly leapt up and growled right in my face and went for me! Like when a dog barks in your face - I have never ran away so fast in all my life! A hundred things were running through my head in that second, the main one being 'oh my God do I still have a face?! Has it bitten my face right off?!!!) Louise and Kelly jumped back too and we were all well scared but then they started seeing the funny side of it and I had tears in my eyes! Ok enough of the tigers, so ready to leave!

All we did after that was go and see a statue of 3 kings (no idea what relevance they were because I'm crap!) and then booked our trek with a really helpful lady in a travel agent. It was a 3 day 2 night trek in Northern Chiang Mai as Kelly had done the south the year before. It sounded a bit more toursity than what she had trekked last year but we wanted to go and see the long neck tribe and go white water refting so we didn't care!

Day 2

First day of the trek and at first I didn't even think we were going to get there! Our taxi had gone to the wrong hotel and as I ran back round to the travel agent I got hit by an oncoming moped being driven by kids going to school! It only grazed me though but still I was unlucky in Chiang Mai it seems! Anyway eventually our taxi found us and we met our group who were 3 French couples and 2 girls from Australia - all of them were really cool and we were all excited to start our trek off with a visit to the Long neck tribe.

The Long Necks were weird and I kinda felt a bit sorry for them. They had been brought over from Burma for tourism and they wear coils around their necks as part of their tradition. Its supposed to be seen as attractive to the opposite sex but it just looks painful! Their necks are so stretched and we saw photos of what their necks look like when they're taken off which was interesting as I always thought their necks would break if the coils were removed. The kids wear them from a young age too and the women also wear them on their legs. It was all just surreal, none of them looked like they wanted us to be there and they're all dolled up with make up on for photos - the kids as well. I don't know what their living conditions were like in Burma but I wondered if they were happier there, poorer but with privacy...?

The next bit of the trek was an elephant ride
(so no walking yet then!) We waited at the jungle camp place for about an hour and we were starting to get quite bored - then hurray the elephants came and up we got. Me and Kelly made Louise sit on the elephants actual head rather than the seats at the top, our excuse being 'she is the only one who is travel insured for elephant trekking' which was true! The elephants were so funny and they were nicer to them than when I went I went to India and they were hitting them all the time with sticks. We went up and down hills, got sprayed by water and Louise had her feet and legs in between its sweaty ears and hair which was so so funny! Everytime it waved its ears Louise legs would get hit with sweat hahaha!

After the elephants we started walking and it started raining. The whole way we were going up hill and it was quite steep and really really muddy and slippy. Kelly went down so many times and we were all covered in mud and absolutely soaking. It was like terrential rain the whole time. Sometimes it would clear for like 10 minutes and we could take some nice photos of the scenery but then it would start up again - I thought I was quite fit but I was well out of breath! We made the fist camp at sunset and stayed in a hill trive village with a family who was living there. A few people got massaged by the women living there and we had a few beers while our guide and his mates who he'd brought along, made us dinner.

The dinner was the nicest dinner ever and then the guitar came out and they taught us the elephant song which is like a Thai nursery rhyme. It goes 'Chiang Chiang Chiang...' but thats all I know! The beer over here is called Chang too and it had pictures of elephants on the can so I just think of it as the beer song!

Day 3

We trekked again and I was glad today would be lots of walking because I love trekking through jungles its so fun and hard and challenging! We walked for a couple of hours and the rain made the ground really slippery. We walked downhill for ages which is actually harder than going uphill and Louise fell over - so funny! Right on her arse! We made it to a cool waterfall and we went in but couldn't go right under the huge fall because it was too dangerous. But then after lunch we walked to a massive waterfall and a local kid we were walking with called Kaka got right under so we all followed. I've never been under a waterfall before and it bloody hurts! The force coming down on you is massive and after a while it hurts your neck! But it was really cool - we did it a few times, loved it!

We walked to our second nights camp which was a jungle camp near a river. We dried off, had dinner and drank more and listened to more songs on the guitar. We'd all taken a bit of a shine to Kaka who was only 18 haha!

Day 4

Last day of the trek and we didn't have far to walk before we could go white water rafting. We got into our glad rags which was a life jacket and all we learnt was 'lean left, lean right, paddle, stop paddling' haha but thats all we needed to know really because the rapids weren't huge or anything. It was fun and our team (basically us against the french!) we amazing and we beat everyone on the river! That night when we got back Louise and Kelly had a painful Thai massage and then we got on a minibus at 8pm to take us up to Chiang Kong where we could cross the border into Laos. We arrived there at about 2 in the morning and in a daze we just got right into bed at our pre booked guest house. I was glad we decided to travel straight up to Chiang Kong instead of waiting a day, even though we were so tired after our trek. Plenty of time to sleep when we're no longer here I say!