Water fights, Elephants, Travelling and soo much food!!

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Our last few days in Krabi were spent in Mr Long's Reggae Bar drinking homemade tequilla! And Friday 13th April was Songkran! The entire street to the beach was full of people celebrating! Everyone had water pistols and buckets of water and within 5 mins we were soaked!! It was great fun, and a great way to cool down!! They also put some talc on your face aswell, and a couple of people had menthol talc, a wee bit nippy!! Was a great last day in Krabi, follwed by another thunderstorm at night!!

We got a mini van to Phuket town, and had our first experience of trying to cross a motorway to get a taxi. Apparently the trick is to just keep walking slowly and everything will drive around you! Our technique was more wait for a Thai person and follow along at the side of them!!

We stayed at Phuket backpackers in Phuket town. Phuket Town is much different from the beach resorts, the buildings are in so many different styles, and it's very busy but it a completely different way to the tourist areas and to Bangkok. It was mostly Thai people we met, and it was nice to walk around and just experience the place without actually doing anything! We went to Patong beach for the day (50p in the bus) and met up with the Australians we met at full moon for a night out. Patong is nice, but a bit like Benidorm! And the club had no sprite! ha! More thunder storms every night in Phuket!



We flew from Phuket to Chiang Mai to save a few days as our visas were due to expire soon! Chiang Mai is amazing!! Staying in the Green Tulip, where everything is green! The goors, walls, ceiling, bed sheets, skirtings, everything! Very appropriate! The owner Stella and the staff were brilliant and helped us organise our time in Chiang Mai! The food in Chiang Mai was amazing, and much cheaper than the beach places in the south.

We went on a one day trek which included elephant riding, a trek to a waterfall, white water rafting and bamboo rafting. The Elephant riding was actually fun, we'd been a bit apprehensive but turned out the elephants seemed well treated. Ours was a bit wild, deciding not to follow the rest around the trail but to go into the river and soak us instead! So we had a rather long elephant ride compared to the rest of the group! The trek to the waterfall was nice, and the guides were really funny!! The waterfall was freezing cold but great for cooling down! And we got a group of Malaysians doing the Broony!! The rafting wasn't so great as it's the end of the dry season so the waters isn't really deep or fast enough, but it was still good fun!

We also done a thai cooking course in Chiang Mai which was great fun but so much food!! We made soup, spring rolls, noodles, stir fry, curry paste, curry and desert!! Couldn't eat it all but it all tasted great! We went to the Sunday night market, or walking street, that night which was great. Loads of stalls set up selling everything!

We got a mini van to the Laos border and stopped at the White Temple, Wat Rong Khun, in Chiang Rai. It's one of the nicest temples we've seen! Striking white it's hard to miss! But when you look closer it's full of strange things, like a predator coming out the ground, and inside had pictures of Freddy Kruger, Harry Potter and everything inbetween. Was very interesting, if completely strange! Border crossing was easy and found a guest house in Hauy Xai easily enough. Met people we'll be on the Gibbon Experience with, A Geography Teacher from Melbourne and a Scottish Couple! Get on really well with the so the Gibbon experience will be great fun! First night in Laos had to be ended with a beerLaos, which we can both drink!! Amazing :D

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