Our last journal!

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After catching 2 flights from Cambodia to Bangkok then on to Chiang Mai, we explored the city, had a swim in a very cold swimming pool, and sat on the back of an elephant (while feeding him bananas). We also did a bit of bamboo rafting, swam in a waterfall and visited remote Burmese hilltribes.

We then decided to go North to the small town of Pai. This involved a rather long, windy road journey through the hills. But it was well worth it, as it was one of our favourite places in Thailand. Its extremely chilled, with a great atmosphere, lovely food, and many hippies wondering about. It has lots of tiny mini-bars on the side of the road made out of camper vans, buses, and sheds, but all with their own slice of charm. The town gets quite cold at night, so I proved Laura wrong by rightly taking our hoodies and jeans. We hired a couple of mopeds for 2 days, and visited a World War II bridge, a hilltop temple, a hot spa and a waterfall. We also went to the Pai canyon, which is a really nice rocky outcrop in the middle of nowhere.

Although we enjoyed Pai immensely, it was the scene of one of the most shocking haircut accidents known to mankind. Laura "forgot" to replace the attachment on the electric hair trimmer, thus my bonce resembled a chess playing surface for the best part of 3 weeks. I'm only just beginning to find it amusing.

It was then a repeat of the bus journey back to Chiang Mai, which was made doubly annoying by the fact we were accompanied by a French lunatic who insisted on singing songs in French at the top of his voice. For the entire lenght of the trip.

Next stop was Kanchanaburi via Bangkok (again). There wasn't much to the town itself, apart from a really nice river (on which are an intruiging amount of Karaoke boat cruises providing endless entertainment for Chinese holidaymakers). But the surrounding area is the infamous Death Railway, which stretches from Thailand all the way to Burma. The Japanese forced the POW's to build it in World War II with the intention of going all the way to India (over 100,000 people died including 7,000 Britons. On Kanchanaburi's outskirts lies the Bridge over the River Kwai, which we took a trip to and had a history lesson in the museum, before going to the Allied War cemetery. (Reading some of the inscriptions on the headstones (a few in Welsh) were particularly emotional.

Another trip from Kanchanaburi was the Erawan falls. It is breathtaking and has 7 different layers each of which are around 200 metres apart. It provided ample swimming opportunities and also a free fot scrub from all the fish nipping the dead skin off our toes. Niiice!

Lastly in Kanchanaburi was the Tiger Temple. I wasn't overly keen on this, as I had read of a reecent mauling of a Thai tourist at the attraction. But I'm glad I did it, as we were allowed to stroke the adult tigers and sit down next to them etc. Theyre alot bigger than I realised close up, and if you look closely at the photos you can see I was sweating rather profusely.

Next we caught a public bus to the coastal resort of Hua Hin. We figured we needed some sun and sand to round off our trip before we head home. We have to have at least a small tan to show off back home, though I fully expect mine to slide off on the plane journey back. It was busy, and full of the usual European package holiday crew, but nothing a quick dip in the Gulf of Thailand or our hotel swimming pool couldn't cure.

As I type, we're in humid downtown Bangkok, waiting to catch a taxi to the airport. We did a few last tourist attractions - the floating market, the enormous gold Buddha, Chinatown, the Grand Palace.............

...........So there it is,

50,000 kilometres, 21 aeroplane flights, 7 countries, and 2 dodgy bellies later, we're about to set off from Bangkok back to Heathrow. It's been a pretty amazing journey, we've done and seen things we never thought we could, and we've met people we never thought we would!

Has it changed us? Definitely - we're broke.

But we wouldn't change a thing. Our favourite things include climbing up Mount Tongariro and down Franz Josef Glacier in New Zealand, camping with the dingoes on Fraser Island, the desert Islands of the Yasawas, Fiji. Partying in 1770, Queensland, and the remote wilderness of Tasmania.

I'm going to miss constant sunshine, cheap ale, friendly faces, late nights, late mornings,amazing food and exploring new places. But I'm looking forward to some proper cheddar cheese, bacon, a pint of Guinness and BBC Wales. (and of course seeing family and friends again).

Our plan is hopefully to find work in Cardiff, but we have no set plans (I might have a week off when I get home!)

Thanks for putting up with our ramblings. And if your'e not quite fed up with all our photos, here are the links one last time:

www.flickr.com/photos/richandlaura

and new photos on:

www.flickr.com/photos/lauraandrich

Rich and Laura

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