Bangkok - Chaing Mai

---

After the adventure and a half to get to Bangkok, I arrived at 2am in the morning. Basically too tired to wait around for the bus or the morning, so I got a taxi to Koh San and got a dodgy looking hostel for the night but I was in much need for sleep. I spent the first day wondering around the markets waiting for Katrina and Ange to make it to Bangkok that night. When I checked my e-mail I found out that Ange didn't make the flight, so me and Katrina had to wait 2 extra days for her to come, which wasn't that bad really. We got to go to the floating markets, which yes they are a bit touristy, but I still thought it was pretty cool. We also saw the infamous grand palace and it was pretty amazing and huge! I couldn't believe how big it was. Eventually Ange came and the next day we organised a trip up to Chaing Mai. We wanted to do the treking as soon a possible and to get away from Bangkok because it is a bit overbearing at times. Same Same but not different.

We organised a tour with a person called Noi, who was halerious funny. She also organised our Cambodian Visa's so we had nothing to worry about. We got a pretty good deal we felt as well. Free bus up, cheap trekking tour and free accomadation. After the freezing cold bus drive up to Chaing Mai we crashed for the first day. The following day us and a group of people came up on a trek. The group was big and awesome bunch of people. It had 4 Norway girls, 2 Brits, 2 South Africans and 3 Chile people. We all got along really well and we all kicked off to a great start. The trek wasn't really that difficult I personally felt, in China I thought it would have been hard so I trained for 4 weeks at the gym, a bit of an over precaution really. The treking environment was perfect, the weather was great and everything was so much fun. My favourite day was the first when we made it to the camp site and got to play a game of soccer with the Thai village. All teh villagers were out. I am sure they are use to playing with forgeiners but it was still good to experience their life style for a day. That night consited of dancing, drinking, games, drinking, talking, singing and drinking.

Without a hang over we treked for about 6 hours in the heat. But again I didn't think it was that bad. We went to the waterfalls and swam in the FREEZING water. Although it was good to get away from the heat, it was still COLD. That night was similar to the first night where we all sang, drank and played games untill the early morning. Although the South African Sarah and one of the Norway girls Ida, got extremly wasted but it was still halerious to watch them by the fire side. After we eventually got up we took an 'elephant taxi' back to the town. All in all the trek was probably one of my favourite things I had done whilst traveling.

Back in Chaing Mai we did lots of things. Yes I crashed a motor bike and had to pay for the damage but up until that point it was great fun scooting around on them. We also saw Thai boxing, another highlight of mine. I reckon it was great to watch the fights. Also we saw the tigers, which were cute and aparently it was a lot better then in Bangkok and also cheaper. All in all Chaing Mai was awesome and I wish we had longer there but Laos was calling and hopefully the Gibons, but as we left we found out that they were only calling for one of us so we didn't get the opputunity to go.

---