Trekking in Thailand

Well, I have spent the last few days in Bangkok seeing all sorts of "Wat's" or temples and trekking in the jungles of northern Thailand... something that was such an amazing experience. Bangkok is a busy, crowded city- dirty in places- with amazing well kept Wat's... the difference between the two such contrast. The temples are very interesting, different sizes of budda's with different meanings behind each one. The emerald budda for instance is small, and is emerald... and then there's Wat Pho with a reclining Budda, a huge 15 meters tall and 60 meters long with mother of pearl feet and the rest in gold leaf. It is the third largest... so I can only imagine the others!
There are 6 boys in my group along with Kris and I - all 23-24 yrs old & from London... there accent is sometimes a little hard to understand, but they are fun to hang out with. After a day & half in Bangkok we boarded the train for Chiang Mai, a trip that lasted 17 hours on the train... (with a 3 hour delay) as you can imagine, we were excited to get off and arrive- lets just say it's not the most efficent train around! We spent the remainder of the day seeing a bit of the city and the next morning we were off- trekking! The first stop was a waterfall about 40 mins out of the city, and then a local market filled with all sorts of interesting foods- crickets, waterbugs, live & roasted frogs.... seafood, vegtables and different handycrafts. After the market we continued to drive until we hit the start of our trek, into the jungles of northern Thailand. For two nights we slept in hilltribe villages, in buildings made from bamboo & enjoyed the local food and saw the way of life. It was interesting to see the agriculture and learn more about their traditions and livelyhood. On the second day of trekking we stopped at an elephant farm where we enjoyed a elephant ride through the jungle for an hour. To see these amazing creatures up close - and be able to touch them was so incredible. Pictures do not even capture their beauty. The last day of the trek we rode on a bamboo raft on a river for 3 hours, made by the local hilltribe, forgoing the 7 hour hike back. It was so fun to ride through the rapids ( at times) and see in a different way the jungles of Thailand.
Today we are back in Chiang Mai and later taking the train back to Bangkok. So far it's been beautiful weather - about sunny and 70-80 degrees most of the time. Looking forward to all thats ahead and enjoying everything along the way- Thailand has been pretty amazing and can't wait to see more!

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