Time to rough it!

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We got into Chiang Mai this morning, after an uneventful night train from Bangkok. We're heading out on a trek into the mountains tomorrow morning to do an elephant ride, bambo rafting, lunch with the long-neck ladies (who wear the rings around their necks), swimming in a waterfall and more adventures. Exciting and scary at the same time, cause we'll be sleeping in little huts with probably some BIG bugs.

So our time in Bangkok was pretty sweet. We hooked up with one of the touts who get a comission from shops if he brings tourists there. Well we made a pretty good arrangement... he can drive us all around the city, to all of the best sights, and we'll visit a few shops for him. He even told us exactly how long we had to browse for him to get a comission. So we saw the best of Bangkok and even got a longtail boat tour through the canals, and all that I had to do was shop! Definitely a win-win situation. So we saw big and little bouddas, we saw shanty shacks with kids swimming in the dirtiest river ever, next to palaces, we saw old ladies frying up random meats on their little kayaks and we saw the most extravagant temples (makes the catholic churches look pretty shoddy). All in all, a great day.

After dinner, we boarded our night train and had a not bad sleep in our little beds. With my hair up in a bum, I could fit perfectly, but Den was not so lucky. At least we were in an a/c sleeper car. The people who were in regular seats looked pretty rough when we got off the train this morning.

So we'll be up the mountains, fighting off mosquitoes and seeing some pretty cool things for the next few days, then we night train back to Bangkok and fly out to Cambodia the morning of the 1st.

Love J and D

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