Up early having had a crap nights sleep and now probably having contracted the black death from ratty. Got some baguettes for lunch before heading down to the dock. Got on the boat and waited for ages as it packed up again. Today the journey was to be 8hrs long. It was sunny and relaxing at first until the discomfort of sitting on a narrow bench started to become more and more noticable. Just chatted with people around me. The most eventful thing that happened was some dutch (training to become a buddist) guy had his camera stollen. As we were setting off he was almost in tears and praying to this little copper pendulant of Budda. Suddenly we heard this load shouting. We all looked over to see this large Lao block running, along side ... read more

Got up at 7:30 and left the guest house at 8:00 with Venetia and Chressie. It was going to be a day full of travel as we tried to make our way towards the Laos boarder. Took a Tuktuk to the coach station. On arrival we were informaed that the earliest bus to Chiang Rai and cheapest was a goverment bus with no air con, in an hour and a half time (4hrs). Not wanting to hang around for an air con bus (3hr wait) and pay 4 times the price for a VIP, we went goverment. It wasnt that hot today. Relatively cool and cloudy. While I was trying to pay the lady at the kiosk for some reason stood up to attention and refused to take my money. I kept saying "heres the ... read more

Up late again. Went down the road and being so late I had lunch with Venetia, Chressie and Kye. Being all tiered from the nigh before we spent a while here not wanting to get up and leave. Oranised an elephant trip for tomorrow. The girls went for some massages while me and Kye had a wonder around. We visited the lovely Jade Budda before hitting China Town and its multy storey indoor market. Later met up with the girls and being 4:30 it was time to hit the night market. This consists of many many stalls lon 2km length of road. At one point I was trying to barter with one guy for a football shirt fotr my little brother. He wanted 600B which included some shorts. I was trying for 450 with out ... read more

Got up after a good night sleep and headed down the street towards the Sanythaew stop (converted pickup with wooden benchs in the back and canopy.) On the way I picked up some bread, chisps and lots of water as it was a really really hoy day.) Most of the people Id talked to on the way up were missing this place out (going straight to Chang Mai) but it was nice to see there was still a few here who wanted to visit the ruins of Thailands first (and greatest?) ancient capital. On the pickup ride over I met two Americans (cool ones) and we rented some old bicycles. Spent the next 3 hours cycling around these trully beautiful ruins. There were a few people there but not many so we had the place ... read more

Today I got up late again! Wasnt sure what I should be doing, but I felt like starting my journey up north towards Chang Mai. But first I will be stopping at Sukhothai to check out the beautiful ruins of Thailands (then Siam) most impressive ancient city. So I reserved a bed at a guest house there (took me 30 min and some help from reception to work out how to use the darn phone system here) then had brunch. Later I checked out and after a bit of bartering I found a cheap taxi ride to the Bus station. There I got my bus ticket and then started my six hour bus journey to Sukhothai. The bus was very comfortable (a little clinical) with air conditioning. This was surprisingly 2nd class so god knows what ... read more

Got up early and was picked up outside the guest house at 7:00. Today was going to be a busy day with lots to see and do. Having said this it did take a while to get us going as the train of mini buses spent aprox over an hour caining it through the city picking up people from all sorts of Guest houses around bankok. First stop was the famous water market. On the way up (1h and 30 drive) I talked to a very nice australian couple. We stopped of half way through the journey to check out some small market by the road side which wasnt great. Finally we reached the point in which we were to jump on to the high powered river boat that was to take us to the ... read more