Hi, Kate and Tom here!

We have just come back from a 3 day and 2 night trek in Chiang Mai which is in the north of Thailand, it was brilliant! We left on Saturday morning and met the other 9 trekkers in the Jeep.

We went first to ride elephants! We bought bananas to feed them all, and it is very funny putting them onto their trunks. We got given the largest elephant to ride called Dumbo, he kept trying to eat everything around him, going up on his hind legs to reach the high bushes, almost throwing us off!

After riding the elephants we started the 3 hour trek, it was very hard and we were all pretty tired afterwards!, especially as we walked for the first hour in tropical rain... but it did help to wash away all the sweat from the intense heat :)

Our stop for the night was at a village where the Lahu tribe lived, we were staying in a hut on stilts of one of the families. Dinner was fried chicken, rice and green curry eaten by candle light :) Afterwards we all stayed up chatting before going to bed ready for another busy day.

Well the sleeping went well until about 6am when cockerels woke us up, they were next door and so loud! JJ (Our crazy guide) woke us all up for tea, strange eggs with onions and loads of jam toast and pineapple. We all suspected that the trek today would be really hard, but it wasnt bad at all! Stopped at 2 waterfalls to swim in which were very cold and refereshing...

The 2nd night we stayed in a Jungle camp, which was amazing!, it was just a hut on stilts ( with a little bar/shop) in the middle of a jungle by a river. We ate outside, followed by games of cards, uno and charades by a campfire :)

A long sleep later, we woke up and walked in very hot sun to the rafting centre where we went white water rafting! There wasn't really many rapids to go down, but it was very fun splashing and racing the other team. We then went onto bamboo rafting, Tom and I were with 2 other girls and ours wouldnt stay afloat!, it kept sinking... Tom took control of the pole where I and the others atempted to keep afloat, we were scaring ourselves that there were crocodiles and snakes in the water :)

After a quick phad thai lunch together we began a long jeep ride back, all pretty tired and smelly...

Now were nice and clean!, one more full day in Chiang Mai, on Wednesday we will make our way to Laos :)

Bye for now!