week 3 - Central and Northern Thailand

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Started week 3 with 10 hours in Lopburi, a place famous for having a renegade band of Monkeys that live in the North of the town and terrorise tourists. Which i promptly learnt to be true when a monkey tore my shopping bag and made off with my pack of Smokey Barbeque crisps, git! He then sat on a lamp post watching me while he ate them. Ah well. Spent the day with a German dude called Peter,who likes to sing Bob Marley in a German accent, superb!we then hopped on the night train to Chang Mai.

Chang Mai was cool. Took a cooking course, got to cook 5 dishes and eat them. I can reccomend 2 full curries before 11am as an effective hangover cure if you were out drinking untill 5am the night before. Went for a 3 day trek through the Jungle which was awsome. Following rivers and trekking through rice fileds. Sleeping in wooden huts in the middle of the rain forest, cooking out tea over an open fire, swimming in waterfalls and bamboo rafting, very nice!

Lef Chang Mai and took the public bus up to Chang Khong, on the Thai/Laos border. The bus was superb. Old retro bus with all the window and doors open. 3 of us just itting at the back watching the rice fields and the mountains roll by in the sunshine with the wind in our hair, doesnt get much better! Going to take the slow boat up the Mekong tommorow, takes 2 days and should be good fun!

Roll on Laos...

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