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hey guys! Right few days catch up! Currently in Kanchanaburi arrived by sleeper train from Lampung at 5am this morning zzzz then 2hour bus ride. Its sports day here and there having a massive parade down the streets! Weather has picked up in the last couple of days is a scorcher has been humid but cloudy which was nice for the trek but glad to have a bit of sun. fell asleep on the bus the other day with my arm out the window and had one red arm haha need to sit on the other side to even up not the best look haha!
right....16/08/08 - Chang Mai
Today we had a free day (1st one so far) after our trek to wind down. Took a trip to the post office (coz i never do that at home lol) coz some people wanted to lighten there bags and send stuff home. Had my toenails painted and for 150 baht bout 2 pound lol they were minging after the trek the lady laughed at me i nearly cried joking haha! Later on we hit the night market biggest one in thailand i think soo big so much to buy such a good atmosphere! Got some fake birken stock flip flops 2.50 pounds bargin. Then we decided to try this restaurant called the herb garden which me and abbey found in the lonely planet! we actually walked for hours and dragged everyone along and never found it was soo emmbarrasing lol! funny thou!
17/08/08 Got up early to catch 7.30 bus to chang rai Nrothern Thailand took 4 hours zzzz! The journey actually went quite quick, when we got there we got a tuk tuk to the longboat stop to catch our 2 hour long boat ride! They are long thin wooden rickerty boats with a lil ledge for sides lol! they go pretty fast but not crazy fast. We were due to stop twice on the way for some sight seeing. First stop was at a minority village , simular to the hill tribes but only home to 60 people. We wandered through their village admiring their slef built wooden houses mostly made from bamboo. Our guide brought these bamboo sticks fromone of the locals who was selling them in the village for 5 baht, when you open them up inside is sticky rice which makes it sweet is so nice taste like rice pudding, wasnt expecting that to be i there! After that we got back on the long boat and travelled further down river which runs through the valley and stopped at the hot springs - naturally heated by the earth. Didn't really fancy the swim considering it was already like 30 degrees outside lol perfect for england but not thailand lol! So instead we brought eggs dipped them in for like 20mins and made boiled eggs! which shows how hot parts of it are. After this we jumped back on the boat for another 30mins to chang rai. Stayed in a really nice clean cosy hotel which was nice. At about 6 went in to chang rai town for dinner is so nice, they have this massive courtyard in the middle of there night market with loads of food stalls soo you can choose what you want from pad thai, sushi, spring rolls, chips, prawn and these really nice frozen fruit smoothies. After our dinner we sat and watched the lady boys (boys dressed as girls) performing on stage with song and dance was interesting... lol they dress so well its actually really convincing lol!
18/08/08 - Travelled by big Tuk Tuk early morning for 1 and half hours to the Thailand Burma borders. Had to go through immigration to enter the country of burma. Once we had crossed the border we hired motorbike taxi's which have small carriages on the back to take us around burma. We visited 3 temples, i swear there are thousands of temples in thailand lol! they are all really diiferent though. Next we went to the tourist attraction known as the long necks, i didnt really want to go here as before i had been told that they were made to stay in Burma and not return to there homes 1000km away as they bring money as a tourist attraction. But "apparently" these ones live in Burma. We decided we should see for our selves. Basically the long neck people traditiopnally wear gold rings round there necks from the age of 5 - 30 years old adding one every year and they can never ever take them off for anything. It gives the illusion that their necks are elongated by the rings but infact the rings are heavy an push their collar bones and ribs down making there necks look longer! The reason they wear them is coz tigers used to bite there necks and kill them so it was a form of protection. After this we went to a burmese market, its soo surprising how much poorer Burma is and its only about 100m from thailand border, we felt abit uncomfortable being surrounded by people trying to sell fake ciggerettes, so we headed back over the border to thailand for some lunch. it was good to experience Burma ut i dont think im in any rush to go back. After lunch we travelled to the Golden Triangle view point, a point at the top of the hill where u can see the meeting point of the three countries Burma, Thailand and Laos. After viewing the golden triangle we visited our 3rd country of the day Laos a small and rual country, not alot to do, we travelledacross the river to laos by a really fast motorboat was soo fun, was slightly windswept afterwards lol!
After laos we headed back to our hotel and headed into Chiang Rai town for Icecream yum had a chocolate sundae with hot fudge and maltesers was soo yum. Then did a bit more market browsing.
19/08/08 Caught the bus in the morning to Chiang Mai and on to Lampang elephant conservation centre, we arrived late afternoon and went for a swim in the dam and explored the massive forest area, we stayed in these really cute wooden shacks reminded me of centre parcs. In the morning we got up at 5:30am to go and collect the elephants from the forest to bring in and bath. Was so good to walk with about 20 elephants all in a line and us just walking next to them, they are biigger than i realised and apparently they can only see straight so i was thinking they might tred on me lol! We then watched them bath in the river and they were squirting water at us through there trunks so cute, eventhe baby ones were. Later in the afternoon we visited the elephant hospital they had broken nails...seriously coz they have big nails its quite bad lol! saw some newborn elephants!!!!!!! :D:D and then made some paper out of elephant dung....was interesting he made me break up the poo in water lol! it was clean thou...well as clean as poo can be! i made some green paper lol nice!! We then had to get ready to go to the train station to catch the over night sleeper train to bangkok then a bus to Kanchanaburi where I am now (21/08/08 10.10am) The sleeper train was so rocky but i slept alright, we arrived at 5.30am this morning and nearly missed our stop so we all rushed out the train and the steps are steep and high and i was trying to be quick missed the step and fell out the train and splat on my front with my big backpack on my back my lil one on my front and my small side bag was soooo emmbarrasing! i scraped me knee :d not the nicest thing to do at 5 in the morning haha! woke me up thou and did make me chuckle lol! anyways thats it for now, my fingers are aching lol! Will fill u in on the next few days when i get to bangkok on 24th.
Thanks!
Lots of love xxxxxxxxxxX
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