Chaing Mai, Thailand

The 36 hour journey we made to get to Chaing Mai was definately worth it.

Chaing Mai's old town is surrounded by a moat and the whole town is a maze of little streets. Getting lost is a given, especially if you have Kim's sense of direction. The night bazaar here was amazing, we went two nights in a row and still did not manage to see it all! It had everything there... clothes, jewellery, art work, ornaments, lights, gadjets, on one stall we even saw kittens and puppies for sale... they were tiny and only cost 15 pounds!!!

Trekking - hardest thing we have done so far but definately rewarding and good fun. The first day involved a 4 hour trek in the midday heat. We were constantly hiking up stupidly steep hills or stumbling down them. We were all dripping with sweat, our legs were shaking like leaves and we are proud to say that not one of us gave up.
We were the happiest people when we made it to the tiny long neck tribe village that we were staying at for the night... they even had cold beers ready for us... just what we needed!

The long neck tribe are very shy so we only met them briefly. There are several stories behind why they wear the rings around their necks. One is that they believe it makes the woman more beautiful, another is that they believe it will protect them from the tigers.

That night they cooked us green curry (not very nice but we couldnt go hungry so down it went), then we lit a bonfire, had a few more drinks and a sing song around the fire.

After waking up to the sound of cockrells, our second day began. We started off to another hour and a half trek which eventually brought us to the elephant camp. Here we got to ride on the elephants, on land and through the water, and got to feed them bananas to say thank you, they were adorable.
In the afternoon we did white water rafting down the river, stopping as we passed little villages on the water edge, where all the children were playing. We then floated down the rest of the river on a bamboo raft before returning back to our hotel in Chang Mai. The funniest part was seeing us try to get onto the rafts, Kim and Greg fell over several times and Greg managed to put his foot through one of the rafts... definitley a 'youve been framed' moment.


Link to photos of Chaing Mai:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2293143&l=1f2df&id=197810485