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Right, so where do i begin. I got to Bangkok and did all the ususal things, went to see the grand place, basically like Thailands version of the forbidden city but thankfully alot smaller!! And I went to see the reclining buddha, which is huge! I don't really know much about it, why he's reclining or if its the only one in the world. But just seeing it without knowing anything about it is still pretty impressive. His feet are covered with mother of pearl pictures and are about the size of a person and a half and they're only the feet which are lying on their side. I apologise if this blog makes no sense by the way because last night I went out with my new group and drank quite a few buckets. Which are basically cocktails from a bucket so theres quite alot of alcohol. But it is what has to be done on the Khao San road, which is basically where all the back packers come when their in Bangkok. The street is a market during the day and then turns into a market of bars at night. Quite literally they put a few stalls up and just transform in one minute from a clothes stall to a stall with a bar in it.
Anyway I got side tracked. My trip started in Bangkok and went up to Chiang Mai and then came back down to Bangkok so this is my second visit now. So I went up to Chiang Mai, on yet another overnight train, i'm now very used to these which is good because i can sleep really well. When we got to Chiang Mai we were really lucky with our timing as it was the buddist festival Loi Krathorp. This festival is basically a festival of light, and they beileve by lighting a lanturn or floating a candle lit raft of flowers down the river they're letting go of all they're bad things. So they're letting go of their anger and the bad things that they've done so they can start over again. So as we went down to the river the sky was filled with floating lanturns and the river had loads of lights floating down on it. We got there on the second day so the celebration wasn't as big, but they were still letting off loads of fireworks and people throw alot of fir crackers on the floor. Health and saftey would have a feild day if they saw it though because you were aloud to let of little fireworks of the bridge and on the streets. They were only small fireworks but they could do some damage if they got let off in your face, and people were letting of firworks underneath power lines and all sorts. But i survived so it was all good.
Then we set off into the jungle. The first day we went to a waterfall which was about 100m high and we tried to go in but the water was just way too strong, it felt like chunks of ice were hitting you and it was pretty cold too!! Refreshing though. Then we walked 2 hours which is kinda made difficult by the humididty even though it was only about 16 degrees, our tour guides were wearing hats and scarfs! And the next day we walked longer about 4 hours, but theyre were thankfully only 2 hills (even though they killed us all whilst we were breathing heavily, not being able to talk, slipping in our walking boots our tour guides were shimming up the hills whistling in flip flops, kind of annoying). And we got to the elephant camp about midday. Each of the elephant has his own owner and they train them from when the elephant is young. The trainer is not aloud to wash, drink alcohol or sleep with a woman for a week beacuse it would change his smell and the elephant wouldn't obey him any longer. So we rode on the elephants for an hour an a half. I ended up sitting on the elephants head because it was so hard to try and stay on the seat when you were going up and down really steep hills, so i got a free bum massage from his shoulder blades. And sitting with your legs behind his ears he would wrap his ears around your legs which was kinda of cool. But we were all really sore after sitting on them.
The next day thankfully we didn't have to walk. Even though the trek wasn't as hard as China, it's still alot of walking! We went bamboo rafting that day , standing up on the raft going through smallish rapids. At one point the water was over my knees through the rapids! And no one fell in although gee our local guide had to go in after one of the peices of bamboo we needed for steering. Still in his wooly hat even though it was about 22 degrees. Then we got back to Chiang Mai the local form of private transport, a pick up truck with seats and a canvas cover. Not comfortable on the bum for 2 hours on bumpy track roads! And we all went on a cooking course and learnt how to make, phad thai (local noodle dish), Tom Yum soup (quite spicy), thai red curry and sticky rice (kinda like rice pudding without so much milk). Although we got a recipe book I wouldn't ask for a specially made thai meal when i get back, it didn't really taste right when i made it with fresh thai ingredients!
So tomorrow i'm going to Krabi national park and then to somewher else in thailand and down to malaysia where its meant to be really hot, i'm swaeting buckets here so thats going to be interesting!!
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