Well, to all of you who told me the best thing you can do in Thailand is get out of Bangkok as fast as possible...I hear you!!  what a difference it makes to be somewhere other than Bangkok!

After our day tour to Kanchanaburi Jules and I went to Ayutthaya for the day until getting the overnight train that night to Chaing Mai.  I do have to confess that I had a bit of a bad moment when we arrive in Chaing Mai....after spending the day walking round in Ayutthaya I was so dirty I could see it on my skin and it was, of course, stinking hot even at 9:30pm when our train arrived to take us to Chaing Mai.  I didn't sleep much on the train.  By the time we got to Chaing Mai I was hot, sweaty, dirty, tored nd I hadn't eaten for more than 12 hours.  All I could think of was getting to our motel to have a looong, hot shower and some food.  When we arrived at the hotel jules kindly let me hit the shower first while she took a wander.  Would you believe I couldn't get the shower to work!  I was so gutted....anway, problem eventually fixed so all was ok.

The last few days in Chaing Mai have been brilliant!  Jules and I did a three day trek up in the hills/mountains...no, make that a three day hike!  it was challenging cos there was a reasonable amount of walking and some of it was tough, uphill walking.  Having said that, the hill tribe villages at the end of the walks were well worth the effort.  Jules and I did wonder what we were in for at one point.....we stopped for lunch after walking for the first half hour or so and our guides (we had two guides - Ken and Sonny) asked us if we wanted to see a cobra snake.  it turns out the snake was at the village where we were having lunch and one of the people there had shot it not long after we arrived.  it would have been close to 2m long I reckon...certainly got my heart racing.  Then at the second village our guides found a taranchular (I have just realised I have no idea how to spell that - and there is no dictionary for me to check!) spider which was bottled temporarily (and put on our table while we ate dinner!) before being BBQ'd for the guides and one or two members of the group to eat.  Suffice to say I didn't feel the need to try that particular delicacy!  They also told us at that point that there was a pile of wood we shouldn't disturb (we were looking for more wood to add to the camp fire) as we would disturb the scorpians!  in spite of that and the fact that all toilets were outside in a shed (with any of the wildlife that happened to be in there at the time) and that they were all squat toilets, we had a great time kicking back and joking around with our guides and the others in the group.  we were lucky with the treking group we had as we were all about the same age and we got along really well.  There was me and Jules, three Canadians and three people from england.  if anyone is thinking of coming to Thailand, I can thoroughly recommend the trek which finished with an elephant ride and babmoo rafting, both of which were fantastic!  I will add photos to this at some point soon.  there will be photos of: our guides (who were not only very skilled but also extremely funny), one of the toilets we used and the rafting (hopefully).

This morning we went to the Chaing Mai Zoo which was also interesting, but quite frustrating to get around cos the map of the zoo didn't seem to correspond to the signs or actual layout of the zoo.  Still, I am pleased we went as I saw Pandas!!!  So, to all of those who giggled when I said I would be going to Thailand to see a panda, photographic proof will be put on this website so stay tuned!  I also saw a black panther and various other animals I would never be able to see in New Zealand so it was very cool!

Well, thats enough to get you up to speed!  Many have been asking about where we are at and when so I have set out below our rough itinerary so you can check anytime....

15-19 March - Melbourne

19 March - arrive Bangkok 10:40pm

20 March - Bangkok

21 March - Bangkok - half day tour around Bangkok

22 March - Bangkok - whole day tour to Kanchanaburi (River Kwai)

23 March - Ayutthaya for the day then overnight train to Chaing Mai

24 March - Chaing Mai

25 March - Chaing Mai - three day two night trek

26 March - Chaing Mai - three day two night trek

27 March - Chaing Mai - three day two night trek

28 March - Chaing Mai - Zoo

29 March - Chaing Mai

30 March - Chaing Mai - day tour of Chaing Rai including boat ride to Golden Triangle (boarders of Thailand, Burma and ummm... I think its Laos boarder a river - also drug capital of this area, good for opium apparently)

31 March - Chaing Mai

1 April - Chaing Mai 

2 April - fly to Phuket for a week.

I will update the itinerary once we are in Phuket and we have made plans about where we will go....

Bye for now!

A