Hello everyone! I am now in Bangkok in Thailand having just had a fantastic first week here! I arrived into Bangkok about 4pm and got a taxi to my hotel where i was meeting my group that evening. There were only 6 people in my group which was quite nice and all girls aswell! I was sharing a room with another girl called Charlotte who was travelling alone and we decided to head out onto the streets of Bangkok for some nice traditional thai grub! We found a lush food stall on the side of the road and had pad thai (peanuty noodles) for dinner. only 50p!

The next morning, our guide, Chai, took us on a quick walking tour around Bangkok and showed us all of the main areas including the legendary backpacker area: Khaosan Road! That afternoon we got an overnight train to Chiang Mai and spent the afteroon looking around the city. We got roped into going on this driven tour around all the temples to then be taken to a silk factory and silver factory!! This sort of thing always happens in Thailand, where they say they're going to take you on a cheap tour somewhere and are then taken to factories to get fitted out for dresses or roped into buying a massive diamond ring! We were pretty smart though and got out of the situation sharpish! Plus there were four of us so we just did a runner! hahaha.

The next day we set off on our hilltribe trek and stopped off at a lush waterfall on the way! We trekked for 2 hours which could have been made shorter but one of the girls in my group kept falling over bless her! Mind you..i did topple a few times. I dont think skate shoes are really meant for mountain hiking! We arrived at this lovely traditional thai village in the afternoon and stayed in a traditonal bamboo hut which was really cool. We sang songs and played loads of games during the evening and then went off to bed as we were so knackered!

The following day we had a FOUR HOUR trek! I dont think i have ever sweated so much as i did on that day! Lush! It was worth it though because at the end we could ride an elephant! Riding the elephant has got to be one of my highlights of the trip so far it was so awesome! I named my elephant Nelly. :-) We stayed in another hilltribe village that night and played this game where we all ended up with lines of charcoal on our faces by the end! Its hard to explain but bloody good fun!

The next day we decided to give the hiking a rest and did bamboo rafting instead! the locals that lived in this village that we stayed in, made it especially for us which was wicked! We had so much fun on the river and our guides (Mr Wit and Monkey Boy!) kept chucking us in the river the b*****s! That afternoon we drove back to Chiang Mai and all went on a night out to celebrate finishing our trek! The only prob was that it was Buddha day so we werent really supposed to be drinking! Nevermind! We slyed it anyway. I have accustomed an addiction to Sangsom which is Thai Whskey. Its so nice and doesnt give you a hangover! We were positively buzzing! The next day we got thai massages and chilled out before our overnight train back to Bangkok!

Last night i met my new group who i will be spending the next 11 days with as we travel down to the south of Thailand! Theres 12 of us in this new group and we have a mix of girls and boys this time which should be cool. Islands here i come! xxxxxxxxxxx