So today is the last day of my travels. In just a few more hours I will be getting on a plane to go back home.

The last week has been brilliant though. On our first day in Chang Mai we decided to do something called flight of the gibbon. Basicly its lots of zip wires and platforms in the heart of the rain forest. I really enjoyed wizzing along all of the lines and my fear of heights didnt bother me at all. I think this might have been because you were surrounded by all the trees it didnt seem that high. I didnt even get scared when we had to do vertical drops and they let me do the last drop upside down which was exciting. The next day it was up early to go on a full day trek that we had booked. Luckily it wasnt just trekking that was involved so wasnt too much of a difficult day. We started off by going to a butterfly and orchid farm which I have to say was not that exciting. The butterflies werent particularly colourful. The fun part came next which was when we got to go on our elephant ride. I had been looking forward to this part for ages. Somehow we ended up with the biggest elephant there who seemed to stop all the time to eat and then barge past all the other elephants in the group if they overtook him. I think he might have been the leader as he liked being up the front of te group so much. We had bananas with us when we got on the elephant which they were obviously expecting as he was constantly turning his trunk bac towards us so that we could feed him. If we didnt feed him quick enough he would snort through his trunk at us which I wasnt really expecting. After the elephant ride we walked to where we were having lunch. It was somebodys home where we stopped for lunch so it was quite nice to see how they lived out there. Feeling very full we then headed off for a walk to a waterfall. It was quite a difficult walk with lots of going up and down around rocks so we were all very hot and sweaty when we got there and appreciated the coldness of the waterfall. After our walk came rafting. First off was the standard white water rafting that I had done before in New Zealand. it was a bit timid compared to new Zealand so I was glad the day wasnt just about that. The rafting seemed to be more about splashing people in other rafts as they passed you which was a nice way of cooling off and I was pretty glad the rapids werent bigger as the training didnt seem nearly as good as in New Zealand and I thought the raft was going to tip just on one of the smaller rapids. Half way along we stopped and swapped from the standard raft to a more traditional bamboo one which was hilarious. You all stood up along it and it kept sort of half sinking and falling over. One of the ladies in our group couldnt stop laughing and I think our guide thought this was pretty funny he made her go to the front and control the raft and then starting tipping it behind her until eventually she fell in. She was still laughing though. Once we got back to the guesthouse we headed out again to visit the night market. We soon discovered that this was a great place for bargains and you were able to haggle a lot more than I had in other places so I couldnt resist buying a few things. All in all it was a very fun and tiring the day. The next day our last in Chang Mai and it was pretty chilled out. After a lay in we decided to go for a Thai massage. I hadnt had one of these before as I was a bit scared of the pain of them but felt that seen as Im here it would be rude not to have at least one. it wasnt as bad as what I was expecting although at the start I kept wanting to giggle I soon got over that and there was only a few bits which made me flinch. We then headed out for a walk around and visited one of the temples which was pretty impressive. I found Chang Mai a lot nicer than Bangkok and not nearly so hot and smelly. Unfortuneately we couldnt stay there any longer and that night took the bus back to Bangkok.

The first thing we did when we got back was go and check out the tailor made suits that we were having made. They are so cheap to get done out here so its hard to resist. I had been a bit worried about what mine would like but apart from a few alterations that have now been done I was very impressed.

The next few days in Bangkok were mostly spent shopping and looking around shops. On the Saturday we went to the weekend market which was massive. They had some real bargains though but it was slightly hard to shop in due to the massive amuonts of people and the heat. After most of the afternoon it all got a bit too much so we went and found somewhere for dinner. On Sunday we went to have a look at Bangkoks shopping malls these were impressive though a bit of my price range. They have three shopping centres which are all connected together by walkways and they are all air conditioned so a lot easier to walk around than the market. In one of the shopping centres they even had car shops with top of the range lambourginis and porshes. Im not sure how they got these into the shopping centre though.

Today has been even more chilled but it wasnt feeling too well this morning so decided that a heavy day was probably not what I needed. We spent a few hours by the pool this morning and have been sitting in the bars watching the World go by since then.

By the time I get home I will have been on 52 bus journeys, 24 boat journeys, 9 flights and stayed in 52 different beds (not including all the buses and trains and planes I have slept on) and met loads of brilliant people so I think that is enough for one trip. I feel ready to go home. I am looking forward to seeing everyone again and getting a bit of structure back to my life again. I have learnt about lots of different places that I would like to visit at some point so Im sure it wont be long till Ill be planning my next trip although I think it would probably only be for a few weeks instead of a few months.