We landed safely in Chiang Mai a little later than expected, jumped in a taxi and headed to our guesthouse we had booked the night before. When we got there we were greeted by a man who looked like an older and fat version of Phil Mitchell! He was sound though, and we apologized for being a little late, kieth was his actual name and he gave us a run down of the area, checking out times etc. He also told us about breakfast and said whatever time you want it they'll cook it fresh whether it be 6 in the morning or 4 in the afternoon, they used a local british butcher also and baked there own bread we were made up. We checked into our room and we were starving so we asked kieth if there were any decent restaurants about, And he told us a couple but we just went to the nearest one we could find and it was really nice and cheap compared to were we'd just been. We were goosed anyway so we headed back and got an early one.

The next day we went down and couldn't wait to try the breakky two fried eggs bacon and toast, and a plate of mango pineapple and dragon fruit, coffee and orange juice all included in the price for the room get in!. We got chatting to Rati the thai lady who worked there and she was talking to us about what we wanted to do while we were in Chiang Mai, we weren't too sure!, She then suggested maybe we have massage and relax for today, she told us a place in the temple were you could get massages for 120baht! Rati used to be a masseus so she told us they were really good and took us up their after our brekkie. It was an outdoor massage parlour, that only did thai traditional massage or foot massage. As it was in the temple grounds, you had to be fully clothed so they gave us some huge baggy pjama like pants to wear with our tops. After the massage Matt said his was amazing, after he asked for the woman..which meant I ended up with the man. He battered me and it absolutely killed! ha! At least we'd tried it anyway! That day we had a wander around Chang Mai city before getting some tea and heading back to the hostel. We booked an elephant trip for the next day with Rathi. We were so excited - we had waited to do the elephant trekking until we had gotten to Chang Mai as in most of the other places in Thailand, the elephants were not looked after well and were treated like a production line, were as here it was mostly nature parks and reserves.

The next morning we were picked up at 7.30am by a thai lady called Joy. She was crazy! We picked a few other people up along the way before heading up into the hills to start our day. We stopped off at a thai orchid farm and took some pictures and visited a small butterfly farm where the butterflies were huge! We then headed up into the mountains to visit the Karen Longneck hill tribes. We parked up and walked up towards the village, on the way up Joy stopped and told us loads of information about the tribes and how they ended up here etc. Apparently, the thai government has done a deal with Burma and that the tribes can live in Thailand - but for only a short while, to help tourism etc and then they must go back to their village after a few years. We walked throught the village and spoke to the locals and took some pictures with them. The ladies were telling us that they wear the gold rings around their necks all the time and that the only time they can take them off is when they have a baby, or when they die. They showed us a picture of how they looked with the rings taken off!

After staying in the village for just over an hour we headed up towards the elephant conservation park. When we arrived we bought some bananas and sugarcanes to feed to the elephants. We had to climb up onto a platform in order for us to be able to jump on the backs on the elephant. It was really high and quite scary. Once we were on, our elephant (the biggest out of the group) took off and wandered off. We panicked as there was no guide with us or anything, but after 5 minutes we realised the elephants must be well trained enough to just wander round without a guide. It was amazing! We were up so high and the elephant was so calm just trotting around - we loved it! He was so funny and kept stopping every 5 minutes, pulling his trunk up towards our hands and wouldnt move until we fed him ha! One of the men from the park stood below us and took some photies of us too. After about 45 minutes of walking through the jungle and along the mountain we came to another platform were we climbed off. I started stroking another elephant that was standing near the platform and he loved it. He was pushing his head towards me and rolling his eyes haha! We then had to wave goodbye to the ellies and trek down through the mountain were a little suprise popped up! We had to cross the river in a cage on a zip wire!!! What??? haha Nobody had mentioned this little experience ha! We watched the first lot of our group go across - it was 2 korean girls and they screamed all the way across! lol Next was our go. We got it and it was swinging around - the thai guy closed the door and pushed us away. Oh s***! We sped across the river and reached the other side pretty quick - it wasnt too bad after all.

After the zip wire we all went and had some lunch by the river pad thai wrapped in a banana leaf! classic!, Shortly after we all got changed into our swimming cozzies and life jackets and got a prep talk on white water rafting!. They were saying it was a little bit touch and go whether they were going to do it as the tide was so high which was exactly what Amy wanted to hear Ha!. However we were fine and 6 of us got into the boat quickly while we were ok to go. We rowed down the river for a while before the young thai guy at the back shouted "get down" and we had to duck inside the boat while we dipped through the rapids! We got absolutely soaked! It was so funny - we had to stop half way down and wait for all the other boats as there was a rapid which was really high so we had to all go down together incase any of the boats turned over!

After the rapids we all got back into the truck and headed up into the mountains over a really really bumpy road. We parked up and the heavens opened. It poured down. We had a 4 hour trek - Matt came prepared with his poncho!! I hadnt, so I had to buy an attractive bright pink one from a lady with small stall. We started our climb up the mountain and we passed through the jungle over rivers and rocks. It reminded me a bit of gauge walking in Oaklands in year 6! Apart from we didnt have all the gear on just our spazzy sandals and a poncho! haha We trekked for about 1hou 1/2 - 2 hours before we reached the huuuge waterfall! As the rain had been so heavy the waterfall was really strong. We all jumped in and had a shower underneath but we didnt stay in too long as it was so cold and really rough! There were 2 cats and a dog up there that must live in one of the villages and on the walk back down I had them following me like Dad has the cats following him when he takes the dogs for a walk! ha. On the walk down about halfway down, the dutch guy - who had been doing our heads in the whole trip ha! Had ran of ahead thinking he was tarzan - and as we caught up with him, he had stopped in one of the small huts with his leg stuck out with blood pouring down his leg! What a divvy! He waited until everyone turned up and then had Joy - the tour guide clean it up and put a plaster on it! Wimp! haha I was wearing a pair of purple hareem pants I had bought a couple of weeks before in Bangkok - I hadnt worn them alot so I hadnt washed them yet. They got soaked from the rain and the waterfall and the dye ran right down my legs and turned my whole legs pink! The chinese and Japanese people thought this was the funniest thing they had ever seen! We got down the truck again a couple of hours later! It was time to head back to the hotel! We had such a good day and done so much!

The day after our trek we went and had a massage in one of the most well known massage parlous - it was amazing - by far the best massage we have had in Thailand so far! The next couple of days we spent exploring the city and visited some of the markets. We went to a night market one night were we had our tea from loads of different stalls. There was a big table on the floor in the middle of the market were people could sit and eat what they had bought. The food was amazing - i think we had spicy salad in a banana leaf, pork noodles, chicken gyozas and pork dumplings. So cheap and really nice! We wanted to head to Laos after Chiang Mai so we booked our transport there too! The guy who ran our guesthouse told us about a 2 day boat - but we didnt really fancy this and found a cheaper deal. It was 12 hours on a mini bus - not so fun! Then a visa trip and a 3/4 hour bus ride to the city of Vang Vieng. It wa so cheap so we just booked it! Once we got back to our room, we started to research places to stay and thats when we found out that tubing in Laos had been cancelled! Something to do with too many accidents and deaths of tourists, and also the bars spiking peoples drinks along the river! We were gutted!It had only been closed down a few days ago! It was one of the things we were really looking forward too! We were only really hoping to Laos to do the tubing as we havnt been taking Malaria tablets so we didnt want to stick around to long! Oh well!! We now had to figure out what to do next and see if we could get our money back after only just booking our transport!!

We had a think and thought about Vietnam. It wasnt really an initial part of our trip but as we were so close we thought we may aswell go there for a couple of days to see some of it! After costing it up however with visas being expensive and taking over 3 days to process, transport etc we decided to give it a miss. After days of researching we finally decided to make our way to Bali stopping at Singapore and Kuala Lumpur on the way! This was our plan and we were sticking to it! ha We went back to the office were we had booked our tickets to Laos and luckily we could cancel the trip and use the money for something else instead of getting a refund. We decided to go for a trip to Doi Suthep (a temple at the highest point in Chiang Mai) and a trip to Chiang Mai zoo! We didnt get to see any Giant Pandas in China and they have them here!

On our second to last day we were picked up early at 7am to make our way to the temple. The drive up there was really scary. It was a built by a thai man in 5 months especially for tourists to visit the temple. It was really windy (not as in wind - like bendy ha!) and quite narrow. I dont get car sick often but I was here so I shut my eyes until we reahced the stop! We actually went past the mountain and further up so we could visit one of the mountain villages. It was a really foggy and damp day! We went throught the village and seen how they live, how they cook and met some of the locals. On our way though me and Matt were cornered by 2 of the villagers selling 'real' diamonds. They gave us a magnifying glass and eveything! They even cut a piece of glass in half with it too which was quite impressive!!

Matt had a go of one the villgers bow and arrow and we spoke to some of the local children and took some pictures with them. They also had a beautiful flower garden and waterfall here - not suprising I fell over flat on my face! haha! We spent a hour or so in the village and headed back to the car to go back down to the temple.

The get to the temple you had to climb bout 500 steps, but was worth it when you reached the top!, the temple was amazing gold everywhere! We had to take off our shoes to walk round the temple and Amy had to wear a teatowel type of skirt! The view from the top was amazing, you could see the whole of Chiang Mai! We had a walk round and in one of the prayer rooms there was a monk who we had to kneel down in front of while he blessed you with holy water and tied blessed string around our wrists for good luck! It was quite funny - I was filming matt while he had his turn and he got soaked - everytime he looked up the monk drenched him with water! We headed back down the steps after giving back the tea towel skirt and back on the bus. It dropped us at Chiang Mai Zoo- we were the only people from our trip going so we said goodbye to everyone in the car!

The zoo was really good! Loads of different animals we hadnt seen before! - Even Pandas :) We got to see them really close up as they wernt behind a glass screen. We were about 2 metres away - It was pretty special! The zoo had an aquarium too! It started pouring down so the zoo became empty after a while so it was like having the place to ourselves! Even though the enclosures were really far apart from each other - there was a bus going round the zoo to take people from place to place but we ended up just wandering round getting lost most of the time! After spending the afternoon here we shared a taxi back to the city with a few other people for really cheap!

The next day we were hungover after going out the night before in the city for our last night in Thailand after 6 weeks! So we spent the day packing and getting ready for our long bus ride back to Bangkok!

The 12 hour ride turned out to only be 10 hours which we were made up about! So at 5am we arrived in Bangkok after sleeping on the coach! Blurry eyed we stumbled to the Koh San Road were we were dropped off and it was still full of people drinking buckets and having a night out! It felt really weird! We went and got a few coffees and checked our flight online - watching the piss heads and ladyboys stumble home!! We eventually got a taxi around 8am and headed to the airport for our flight to Singapore!

Thailand has been amazing - we didnt really want to leave but after 6 weeks of thai curries and Sangsom it was time to hit the road and carry on our journey!