Chiang mai & tour

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Chiang mai.

Im going to upload the photos tomorrow, so for now it's just the text.

I had the best nights sleep last night and so far I still have the room to myself which is nice!

I woke early, had my complimentary breakfast; it was plentiful, a mix of Thai and western food.

I was collected at about 08.45 and joined a group of 10 others for todays tour. We were of mixed nationality, French, Italian, Spanish, phillipino & Indian. Thomas, from India and rehana from the phillipines are good friends and both live & work in Dubai

we 1st stopped at an orchid farm, there were so many types of orchid being grown here, a true gardeners paradise.

We then we went to the elephant camp where we rode elephants through the jungle for an hour. I opted the seat rather than bareback. It was great fun, however until you are up close you don't realise what a dominating creature the elephant is, gentle looking, slow paced but I wouldn't want to come across and angry one!

From there we headed to a little village where we had pad Thai wrapped in banana leaves for lunch. A quick stop at the toilet or rather squat hole in the ground and we headed off on the hike to the waterfall.

It was a strenuous hike due to heat, the enclosed jungle and the 'obstacle course' we crossed little bamboo bridges, climbed bamboo stairs and crossed small streams, over an hour later we reached the waterfall, it was lovely, we donned our swimwear and went for a dip, freezing but refreshing from the hike. Of course what goes up must come down, so. Little later we hiked back!

Next up we stopped for white water rafting, it was amazing! A great experience that I'd love to do again. Once we got to slow water we swapped the rubber rafts for bamboo rafts and floated downstream.

A tuly amazing day with a Great bunch of people.

Back at the hotel, I've done my washing as all my clothes from today were filthy,sweaty and smelly!

I've had my tea, beef fried rice, watermelon smoothie and ice cream fruit salad. All for about £2 (expensive by Thai standard but it's hotel prices)

Just had confirmation from Ben guesthouse, chiang rai ( look it up) so got a room there for 3 nts from thur. One step closer to Laos

Tomorrow I'm going to relax by the pool after uploading my photos, try not to burn any more!! :-)

Then I'll figure out which bus to get Thursday morning to chiang rai, I thinks it's about a 3 or 4 hr journey by ordinary bus.

Anyway, I'll upload the photos tomorrow and post again when I'm in chiang rai.



Love to all xxx

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