The Adventures in the Hills.. and beyond

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Thank god Bangkok was far out of sight, and the near frezzing 12 hour bus ride over. The 1st thing that the four of us noticed when we arrived in Chaing Mai was that it was freaking COLD at 7am! Like the good lemmings that we have all become when getting off bus rides we hopped on to the tuktuks that would take us in the the main part of the city. We were dropped at Nice Place 1 and at once i really didn't want to stay there.... so i found two other travellers starting their morning with breakfast and beer... right up our alley way. They were headed to Nice Place 2 and we decoded to join them. Thankfully it all worked out. We were deposited at NP2 dropped our bags and some how signed up right away for a three day trekk - starting the next morning at 8am.
Our fearless leader... Brad Pitt ... (he didn't tell us his real name until after we alll came back alive from the hills) was the best trekking leader ever! Incredibbly intelliget, a master of many trades and languages (English Thai French well... voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir.. and some local hill tribe language) The trekking was absolutly amazing... hiking through the hills in Thailand are beautiful. Although the days are scorching hot (30 degress) and the nights are frezzing cold (really - maybe 3 degrees) It was some thing to remember. Our trekking group consitsed of 4 Canadians 1 American 1 Britt 2 Dutch and 4 Sweeds. It's also amazing how much money you can spend in the hills.... interesting really! The trekking ends with Elephant rides (and the cutest baby elephant) and bamboo rafting - and by rafting i mean all out tip over any raft that is not yours and throw as much alge as possible. Elliott Austin and pete destroyed their raft and lagged begind the whole time - saving them from certian death! The last few days we have all been resting drinking and sight seeing. Kaitlin (the american) and Pete (the brit) headed off the other day, back to Bangkok and on from there. (good luck watching the superbowl Kait!) (i'm cheering for the colts,... really!)
Oh well we have spent enought ime in Chaing Mai and now it's on to Loas... a three day boat ride in to the country and then a, what i think will be a, long horrible bus ride Vientiane. And then i'll be looking for the Plain of Jars, and also a day trip of tubing down a lazy river drinking and a day of ropes, zip lines and rock climbing.... (really cultual eh?!)

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Photos

Austin and village kids...
they really love the caamera!

sorry andrea!!!
our house mate the 2nd night.. in comparison to a pack of Marlies....

kids from the village
these two sisters hung out with us all our 1st night