Phnom Penh

Good morning everyone :)

Bit behind on the blog as we've been having too much fun in the South Islands of Thailand, we've met some great people and got caught up in the partying in Koh Pangnan. We've arrived in Koh Tao and are starting our PADI open water diving course this afternoon so i'm excited :) it's also much more chilled here so we're having a break from the drink.

Phnom Penh

We had 3 nights booked here as in advance we booked a flight back into Bangkok as we needed the 30 day visa to go round the south islands, we arrived on Saturday the 16th Feb.

In that time we didn't do an awful lot so I won't bore you with the stories. The first night we got there we went out to a couple of gay bars, watched a drag show which was quite funny as they were Cambodians and then ended up in a club. We partied hard and didn't get home until 5am. Not going to say what Lee got up to that night but I'm certain you can probably guess lol.

I didn't take many photos in Phnom Penh, during the day we had a walk round the city which is really big actually, everything is really spaced out and we found it quite expensive.
There was a good night market that Lora and I found and we sat and ate Cambodian food on the floor with the locals.



The main thing we went there for except our flight back to Thailand was the Killing Fields.

This was heartbreaking, the Khmer Rouge which was a communist party made up of Cambodian people carried out mass genocide on their own people for a few years in the late 70's following the Cambodian Civil War. We arrived and paid 5 dollars to get in and got a headset to listen to the history. The tour lasted about 2 hours and we listened to first hand accounts of people who survived, and from one of the guards etc. It was very interesting but also heartbreaking when you heard what they did to the people.

I took some photos, there are pits everywhere which have been dug up and thousands of skeletons were found inside. Some of the graves have remained untouched and some are cornered off as the bones and clothing are coming to the surface.
17,000 men, women and children who were tortured in the nearby S-21 prison (which we didn't go to, too upsetting for us was the Killing Fields) were transported over to Cheung Ek to be killed.

This is a killing tree, the guards used this tree to hit the prisoners heads against it to kill them before pushing them into a big pit which hundreds of other dead bodies. 

Inside the Buddhist stupa are around 5,000 skulls and other bones from the 

graves and are on 13 levels right to the very top of the building.

You can see how they were killed by looking at their skulls and they were arranged in order in the Buddhist Stupa.

 That was about it for Phnom Penh... i'll update you soon with what we've been doing in Thailand, but for now i've put up the photos on facebook :)

Lots of love

Hannah xxxxxxxxxx

Battambang, Cambodia

Good morning :)

We've been in Koh Samui a few days now and it's currently 11am, the others went out last night but I was a good girl and stayed in so i'm feeling fresh today as didn't touch a drop of alcohol last night and i've left them in bed to sleep off their hangovers.

So Battambang.... it's a small town north of Siem Reap and as we arrived in Siem Reap 3 days earlier, we had some time to kill so I had a look at the Lonely Planet and this place seemed like an okay place to visit.
We took yet another bus up there which took 6 hours. We were the only tourists on this bus :/ it was the most uncomfortable journey for us. The bus was packed with Cambodians all talking loudly, eating smelly food and the coaches tv was on full volume and some horrendous Cambodian movie was playing... it was an experience. It was that bad that I had my earphones on full volume trying to watch a film on my laptop and I couldn't even hear it. I finally finished the Girl Who Played With Fire, the last book of the Milennium series and had the Swedish film to watch. If you get a chance, read the books if you haven't already and the Swedish films are brilliant :)

Battambang was tiny, and there wasn't much there and not many backpackers at all... it was a strange town as was a French colony and so the Cambodians all speak french and the buildings were very different, French architecture and was way more modern than anywhere else in Cambodia we'd been.
We got picked up by a tuk tuk our hotel had organised and when he dropped us off he asked us what we'd planned to do. He told us about the killing caves which would be good to visit and also about a bamboo train which was a good experience to go to while we were there.
We agreed that afternoon to ride the bamboo train. It's hard to describe what it was but I guess like the size of a fence panel made from bamboo with wheels and a tiny motor... we got on and the driver took us up a rail track up to a little village which was about 20 minutes up and we were probably going 15-20mph. Like everywhere else we'd been as soon as we got there we were surrounded by little boys and girls selling god knows what and were shown where they make bricks. It was interesting but just was rather odd.. almost as if the whole  village had set up there as the tourists were going on this train and so desperately trying to get money off us westerners.

We had a walk round that night, found somewhere cheap to eat (romantic meal for 3 as was Valentines!) and went back to the hotel. There wasn't a nightlife there which was good as we've been partying far too much recently.
Friday we had a wonder around the town, although nothing interesting  to see and organised our driver to take us up to the killing caves.

We went around 3 as the midday sun is far too hot to be climbing a mountain and trekked up to the caves 2/3rd of the way up.. these weren't just caves; they were used by the Khmer Rouge as killing caves during the 70's where the communists were committing mass genocide and killing their own people! Similiar to Hitler  in WW2 they took thousands of people to camps and the camps around Battambang brought them up to the top of the caves there and pushed them all  in :( we didn't understand the history at this point. It wasn't until we got to Phnom Penh and went to the Killing Fields when all of this was explained to us.

We carried on trekking and got to the top of the mountain and there was a beautiful temple on the top - these are the kind I like to see. Peaceful and beautifully made and I was so excited by the residents on the top of the mountain... MONKEYS :D 

I bent down to have a look at one and took some photos, put my water bottle down and it ran up to me and tried to knick the bottle! I was like NO.. you're not taking that (far too hot to be letting my water be taken) so I snatched it back and the monkey in retaliation bit me on the arm! I actually drew blood! 

That was the bastard that bit me!

We made our way down the million and one steps down to the bottom of the mountain and waited for the sun to go down and sat outside a cave near the bottom of the mountain. Once the sun had gone, like clockwork at 6pm 15 million bats left the cave to go and feed. This was by far the best thing i've seen so far. Was amazing to watch and I took a video so you can see for yourselves. 

                                   

So that was Battambang really. There wasn't anything else to do there to the following night we chilled and then made  our way to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia to spend our last 3 days before flying back to Bangkok to make our way to the south Islands of Thailand :) 

I'm going off now to have a swim in the sea as it's such a lovely day and going to lie on the beach for a bit... and all of those who was doubtfalll about whether i'd get a tan... I'm starting to turn a nice colour  :D 

Keep updating me with what you are all up to... i'm really missing home at the moment so be nice to hear from you all.

Lots of love Hannah xxxxxxxx

Siem Reap 10-13th Feb

Hello :)

I'm currently sitting in a bar in Bangkok patiently waiting for our bus, we still have 3 hours left to wait so perfect time to tap away on my netbook.

So we left Sihanoukville on the night of the 9th and arrived early in the morning on Sunday 10th February - Chinese New Year.
The hostel we'd pre booked wasn't ready so we took a walk into town and after an uncomfortable night bus we went to a massage parlour to pass the time. We all had traditional Khmer massages :)
After a bit of food we went back to check in at lunch time and our room was available. We had a 3 bed room which was full of mosquitos but luckily had a mosquito net in the room to go round our futons on the floor. It was the cheapest place in Siam Reap and as it was Chinese New Year everything was fully booked. $2 a night each was a right bargain, so we didn't mind - I went and bought a can of Raid to kill the blood suckers!

Siem Reap has a large Chinese population so we were told to go up for the celebrations, so that night we went out to "pub street" had dinner at the Temple Bar and as watched an Apsara Show (Cambodia's Geishas) over dinner and went to a few bars after for the night. There was a cool bar called Angkor What? The street was really busy, good vibes and got chatting to the others on our table throughout the night. A lot of people we spoke to said the night before was much better, but we spent it on the night bus, and thinking about it its probably like New Years Eve for us.... so we left Sihanoukvile early where we were really happy to go to Siam Reap for this amazing experience of Chinese New Year... but just  didn't turn out that way!

It didn't stop us having a good time anyway and we bumped into the 2 girls sitting in front of Lee & I on the bus the night before (Nic & Bish). It was quite late at this point after we were both smashed. I had to go off in search of food to sober myself up, and came back drinking a chocolate milkshake (we are addicted... key part of our staple diet) and a bar of Cadbury's Dream for Lee - he'd been going on about white chocolate for ages and I found some for him :) We'd lost Lora as she was dancing inside with the Canadians from our table and only by chance did I find Lee again and the two girls from the bus. Turns out Lora went home as couldn't find us and we ended up getting whiskey and a bottle of coke to drink after being kicked out of the Temple Bar and stumbled over to the X Bar. We were there for a bit and decided to go home (at 5am). By this point Lee was absolutely smashed. I was feeling OK as i'd had the food so I escorted him back (this is becoming a nightly routine) but was honestly the funniest walk back ever as he repeatedly kept falling over.. i'd not seen him that drunk before, and as I was pretty drunk too, every time I tried to pick him up I collapsed with laughter!

The next day we'd planned to go to swimming in a lake nearby, the tuk tuk we booked for 10am came and went as we didn't wake until 12 and no surprise Lee was still drunk and I felt a little bit like death. We went downstairs where there was a pool table and a help yourself bar (which was very dangerous as the beers kept adding up) and thought the only solution would be to have a can of ice cold Angkor and a couple of games of pool.
We got chatting to two Canadian girls (there's a bloody lot of them out here!!)  and decided to go to a guesthouse two doors up with a swimming pool. We had a swim and chilled for a couple of hours (with a couple beers,  Lee was going for it!) and the conversation turned round to tattoos.... I said I wanted another one so said to Lee, shall we go get one? He got up and was like Yeah!! I want one now. He was rather drunk, topping up from the heavy night before but was dead set on getting one done (only last week he said he'd never get one lol!) so we literally got up, left Lora to sunbathe with the girls and went into town.

It was about 2pm when we left and didn't get home until about 9pm as we went to a tattoo shop in the X bar and waited for the guy to come back as he wasn't at his shop. We waited about an hour or two playing yet more games of pool and eventually he came back but he had a booking so Lee couldn't get his tattoo done there and then. He was adamant that he wanted it straight away so he told us of a Cambodian man further down the road. . A sign outside said he'd be there from 6pm so we stood outside and asked a Cambodian man to call him and say we wanted to book in, he did and we sat outside for a bit. Two French men walked by while we were waiting and we chatted to them and they said for us to come to their hostel "Garden Village" for a beer and to watch the sunset on the roof terrace bar.  We went up with them and had a look at tattoo designs for Lee. When he first thought about what he wanted by the pool he came up with " I AM PREGNANT" which he thought would be a good idea ?!?!?!? I told him no and that he needed to rethink something else otherwise the tattooist wouldn't tattoo him. He settled on stars so we took a look and found some ideas and we agreed on 5 stars in a diagonal line which looked cool.
We went back for half 6 and Sinath was open! We walked in and Lee was so impatient, the tattooist found the design we'd seen and drew it up and all the time Lee was saying "Tattoo me now!" It was half 7 by the time he was ready so I went off to get us pizza, spring rolls and beer and came back to watch him get inked!

While he was getting everything ready Sinath noticed that Lee didn't just have 2 nipples... he has 4 so was absolutely amazed at the other two he had and called all these Cambodians over to take a look.. some were disgusted with him lol but they all wanted to touch him and see for themselves! Sinath at the end then took photos of his tattoo and afterwards a picture of each nipple and then one of all 4... funniest thing!
He did a good job and made it unique by shading the stars each in a different way and Lee was happy with the result :) I agreed to go back the next day to get mine and we walked home.
On the way back Lee was shouting out "I've been stabbed" as he was walking through the town with his top off and clingfilm stuck to his hip. Definitely one of the funniest days as I was cracking up with laughter and reassuring passers by that he's just being a drama queen. One lady looked so concerned and feared for her life, so I had to explain that he'd just been tattooed.

The next day we chilled and went to visit Angkor Wat which is the largest religious monument in the world and its falling down so won't be there forever.We went for sunset and took some photos and Lee & I thought it was a bit of a let down really... wasn't at all what  I was expecting. I thought it was going to be some grand temple with lots of gold and bright colours, like every other temple we saw but how I was wrong.
We bought a pass for the next day for the Temples of Angkor as Angkor Wat is not just the only one, but it's the biggest tourist attraction.

Tuesday Evening I got my tattoo after we left Angkor and I already knew what I wanted. "Follow your heart and chase your dreams" and Sinath suggested the Khmer language. So I got him to write it out and looked good and was quite long so I got it along the bone in my forearm. (Never ever said i'd get a tattoo which is so visible.. but Cambodia really seemed to be the place where we've all done something we never thought we would!)
So we all hung out there that evening, Lora came with us and she was looking through the books too contemplating whether to get one as well!
She found a design that she really liked and symbolised her love for Asia - the 9 spires.
She got it done the following evening on her thigh.
Wednesday we booked into a hotel as the hostel was full and we hadn't planned on staying a 4th night and went to the temples of Angkor for the day.

We got a tuk tuk to drive us to each of the temples and went for the long tour which took us to about 9 temples, each one was falling down but the best one we saw was Ta Phrom which had massive tree roots all over it, so that was interesting and Tomb raider was filmed there.
Was a long day and we'd had enough by about 7 temples so we got the tuk tuk to drop us off back to the hotel.
We booked a bus to go up to Battambang for the following morning and went to the tattoo shop and hung out there all night and met quite a few Aussies who were getting tattoos before Lora. Good ending for our time in Siem Reap :)

Summary of Siem Reap - lots of beer, all got a tattoo and the temples of Angkor are overrated (or so me & Lee thought.. Lora disagrees) and if you ever go, stay in our hostel - Mangolo. Was great and so cheap :)

Will put up Battambang and Phnom Penh soon, now only an hour to wait until the bus to Koh Samui so tomorrow morning we'll be back on a beautiful beach where we belong :)

xxxxxx

Sihanoukville = Amazing

Hi everyone:)

So we arrived in Sihanoukville around midnight on Monday 4th February, we started our travels from Pai, North Thailand at 2pm the day before. We decided to do it all in one hit as we got to Bangkok at 5am and had the intention of staying there that night to break the journey up but  the hostel that we checked into was used as a whore house and Lee & I saw so many prostitutes taking men there and leaving half an hour later and sitting in the hostels reception at that hour just made us think yuck!!
We went to the first travel agents open at 7.45am and booked a bus leaving at 9am :) Lots of buses and eventually a taxi from the Cambodia/Thailand border took us down to Sihanoukville :) 1600km journey but we made it and found a nice guest house to check into.

We were so excited to be at a beach resort, the first place we've been on our travels where we can just have a dip in the sea and lie on the beach, so that's exactly what we did for 3 days & nights. We found a guest house with two massive beds for the 4 of us to share which had air con and was huge for $5 a night each and was only a few minutes walk to the beach.

In our time in Sihanoukville we literally did nothing, the nightlife there was pretty good, lots of westerners working in the bars and it was all a bit mad! Food was pretty good, similar to Thai and we stayed on Serendipity beach and the beachfront is  full of bars/restaurants with tables & chairs all on the beach and each one serving a BBQ for dinner as well as Khmer food and western dishes.
We met Faye the following day who we met in Chiang Mai as she was over there on her travels and Max came with us too (after a bit of persuasion)
We went out that night and ended up playing beer pong and ring of fire and consuming lots of buckets of whiskey and coke and we also met a girl called Marie from Denmark who was staying in the same dorm as Faye, so there was a few of us out and of course as there are so many travellers there there ended up being about 12 of us playing card games. Once we finished that as we were in a beach front bar we decided (half cut) that it would be a good idea to go swimming in the sea and that night ended up in me like this;

The following day me, Max, Lora and Lee had booked a boat trip and paid a deposit to go visit a desert island and go snorkeling etc but the boys were too hungover to move, so ended up just me and Lora.
They missed out! Beautiful clear waters and white sandy beach, we did a  little trek through the forest and ended up walking through a river and once that was over we got to lie on the white sandy beach for the afternoon :) Great hangover cure!

That evening the boys had recharged their batteries and we just chilled with a few beers in the company of Faye and Marie.
Thursday we chilled by the beach soaking up the sun. Got myself a pedicure and manicure on the beach and and on Friday we booked a booze cruise run by one of the bars..!
2pm it started and literally was just 40 travellers on a little boat getting drunk! I've never been on a booze cruise so was my first time, was seriously messy lol! We met at their bar "Dolphin Shack" and were given a free bucket of whiskey and coke before we even got on board (which we all said we wouldn't be getting too drunk) they went down a treat and as we were boarding the boat they gave us all a can of beer, shoved a hole in the bottom and all together opened the can and downed the beer - my first shot gun!
We got drawn all over with random facts about us which didn't wash off for 2 days!
Usual shenanigans on board; topless diving for free beers, beer bongs, licking chocolate sauce off each other and whiskey trains.. literally all on the boat for one reason.. binge drinking!!

 It was a lot of fun but by the time we got off (6pm) we were smashed! Lee & I went home as he needed to go to bed to sober up and I came off the boat and stepped on glass and my foot was pissing blood everywhere.
By the time I got back to our apartment my foot was fine so dragged Lee to a nearby bar, we had a beer and he went home but I stayed and played pool. I must have played about 7 games with the guys in the bar and won every time except one guy who finally beat me.. I couldn't believe my luck, the role however has now ended!

Lee & Max having a play fight with Cambodian kids, there was about 5  kids running around with them , they then all came and sat with me while I was skyping Mum and Emily, so sweet! I may come home with an adopted Cambodian child.. Angelina Jolie did it, so  can I :P

So anyway on our last day (Saturday 9th) we hung out in one of the beach bars in the shade with everyone and the Toms from Chiang Mai finally made it down and came met us for a couple drinks.
We booked the night bus up to Siam Reap and left a few days earlier than anticipated as the following day was Chinese New Year so took the sleeper bus that night after saying goodbye to Max who went to meet his girlfriend in Bangkok, our time travelling together had come to an end :(.
It was pretty decent, WIFI on board and bunkbed seats (hard to explain), such a curse having long legs and a rucksack, you need to be able to stretch out for a good nights sleep! Me & Lee were both a little tipsy when we got on and he had me in stitches, we really do bounce off each other :D

So that was Sihanoukville :) definitely the best beach I've ever been to and the Cambodians are so much nicer than the Thais!

I'll write about Siam Reap and Battambang soon, lots of love xxxxxx

I like Pai!

Hey guys hope you are all well :)

I've been chilling these last couple days on a beach in Cambodia and not done a lot but get sun burnt and drink excessive amounts of beer but it's been fun! We're off to Siam Reap tonight so i'm sitting in the shade in beach bar, just had a full body massage and a swim in the warm sea :)

So Thursday 31st Jan we left Mojito House in Chiang Mai with our new friends and traveled up to Pai, 3 hours north over the mountains and the journey was rather bumpy!
I found accommodation with availability called Darling View Point Bungalows and so we made our way there and was beautiful surroundings, very peaceful :) It was slightly up the hill from the town but only a 5 minute walk away.

It had a little swimming pool, bar, hammocks, camp fire at night and the owner "Darling" was a complete nutter! 50 or so years old and possibly the most craziest woman I've ever met who we where certain was always off her face on drugs!
We didn't arrive until 5pm so walked into town accross this rickety bamboo bridge and found a place to eat. The girls we met came on a different bus and got there earlier so after dinner we found them and went to a reggae bar after. We had a bit of a mental night the night before so we weren't feeling like a mad one so had a couple and went back to our bungalow and sat in the bar area and got chatting to some people staying there. We met the funniest girl called Francesca who was travelling with her boyfriend and just had a couple of Chang Chang Changs & was in fits of giggles all night :)

On Friday we rented 4 scooters and met up with the girls, they checked into place and rode the scooters up with their backpacks on too! We decided to go to the hot springs which was cool, so we all rode up in convoy, I didn't trust myself carrying a passenger so went on the back of Javiera's bike.

It was so hot in the springs, i'd never seen this before and definitely the wrong time to have gone there in the middle of the day as was boiling anyway! We were laying in one of the pools for a while which was 37 degrees,  so hot! One of the pools was about 80 degrees and you could buy eggs to boil! They were so tasty :) this nice Thai local let us have one each and he put some soy sauce on for us too.. so delicious! I randomly bumped into Francesca and Rob and got chatting to them for a bit and then they joined us for the day as we went to find a waterfall which was worth a look :)

Boiling eggs in the hot springs

On our way to the waterfall, can't really see it buut the scenery was beautiful.

So 12 of us went in convoy up to the waterfall which must have been about 30 minutes drive, got a bit lost but Zuzanna our "tour guide" got us there at last. Did a little trek up to it and chilled out. On the way back after the waterfall (too cold to go underneath that one) Javi & I got a puncture as we went over a massive pothole and probably didn't help that I'm a fat bitch lol! So we drove to a petrol station and a nice man helped show us where we could get the inner tube changed. Luckily was quickly sorted and made it in time to join the rest of the guys back at a view point to watch the sun go down. Was beautiful.

We got back, showered and changed and went out for dinner and met the two Toms as they arrived in Pai too :) we all had a mental night and there was 16 of us at one point, taking over the bars! I remember at the end of the night giving Mel a piggy back most of the way home and we fell on the bamboo bridge LOL.. MAN DOWN!! Things you do when your drunk.... that bridge really wasn't a good place to be messing about on!

So we stayed a third night which wasn't planned and Javi ended up seeing some friends she was travelling with before so the next day I rode the scooter. After breakfast (Pesto Eggs!!) The rest of us and the Aussie Toms went to find the Canyon but out of nowhere it chucked it down with rain, I ended up getting another puncture :S so went off to get that fixed and as I was at the back nobody realised I had to stop even though beeping my horn furiously lol!! So anyway mission  was over and went back to our accommodation.

Had a few drinks that night too but weren't feeling like getting trashed again so had a few at Spicy Pai - the Toms' hostel and back to Darling to chill out :)

The next day we all had breakfast and went our separate ways :( Lee, Lora, Max and I took a bus to Chiang Mai (3 hrs) then the overnight bus to Bangkok.

We arrived in Bangkok early hours of Monday morning, everywhere was fully booked so struggled to find a decent guest house, so ended up in Marco Polo which possibly was the worst place ever! Lora went to sleep but we couldn't so sat in reception using the wifi for an hour and in that time about 5 men and prostitutes were coming in and 30 minutes later leaving again.. DIRT! So we didn't feel like staying in Bangkok as the city is a hole so Max Lee & I went to to the first travel agents that opened at 745 and booked a bus to the Trat, which left an hour later (took 6 hours)! After there we managed to get a bus to the Cambodian border and from there got a taxi all the way over to Sihanoukville... 2 days of travel in one go but we made it by 11pm :) 

Just been chilling here on the beach for the last 3 nights and now waiting for a bus to take us to Siam Reap, so I shall post in a couple days after we've seen Ankor Waht!

Lots of love Hannah xxx 

Chiang Mai; 25-30th Jan 13

Hi everyone :)

Been so busy this past week  that it's been difficult to find the time to write this!

I think what's best to do is to give you a summary of what's  happened whilst we've been in Chiang Mai as we ended up staying 6 nights when only 4 nights were planned!

We arrived at our hostel on Friday 25th Jan at 6am after a grueling 12 hour bus journey from Bangkok. It didn't open until 8 so we were waiting outside looking through some activity leaflets and Max walks by looking for a room. We all got chatting to him, a 19 year old lad from Herefordshire who was out travelling on his own. We told him that our dorm room was only £2 a night each so he waited with us to see if he could get a bed for the night.
We spent that day with him and headed to a few Buddhist temples during the day and went to the Night Bazaar (night market) which is pictured to the left. On the way back we walked through "Sleaze Alley" which is a road full of lady boy & prostitute bars. We wanted a drink but each bar looked worse as the street went on, so quickly got out onto the main road and finally found a bar which didn't look to bad.. still a few Thai girls in there but wasn't so in your face.
I put our names up to play pool and one by one we each got thrashed by these two Thai girls... HUSTLERS! Max got groped and touched up every tine he was trying to concentrate on a shot and Lee got 7 balled #shame.

Saturday we spent the day at a hotel which was 2 doors up as they had a swimming pool which we paid to use and was pretty much ours as the only other person there was Sienna; a 7 year old girl from Melbourne who was obsessed with bird watching. That was made clear once a Turtle Dove out of nowhere flew down to me and flew at my leg! I was lying on my front and in the corner of my eye I could see something flying at me... but she was sweet, went up to her room to show us her bird book.. i'd of liked to of had an interesting hobby at her age!
It was so nice to chill out and spend a day lying on a sun lounger, reading my book and taking a leisurely swim, definitely what we needed as we've been on the go ever since we left.. and consuming our body weight in alcohol each night was taking its toll on us!

Sunday Max went off to meet a guy one of his family friends knows and we just chilled out and went to the Sunday walking street for the night market which is the most famous one in Chiang Mai. There were hundreds of stalls each selling food and hand made things and lots of musicians in the middle of the street but Lee & I aren't really into markets so after an hour it all got too much for us and we just wanted a beer! We momentarily lost Lora and eventually went back to our hostel  and then went out to a place called Zoe in Yellow which was round the corner from us. Such a great night :) Bumped in to the Welsh boys so Lora was chatting with Danny all night and we also bumped into Anna, the girl who beat us at pool a few nights before and ended in dancing with those girls in the photo above for hours!


Monday we booked to go to a place called Tiger Kingdom and we went into enclosures with Tigers, we got to stroke them and lay on them. We started with the smallest tigers which were babies, then we met some which were a couple of months old and then went into the enclosure with the biggest tigers... seriously scary!
Max met us in the evening and stayed at Mojito's and tried their famous Mojito cocktails and BBQ kebabs :) we didn't have a mad one as we booked to go to an Elephant training WWR and waterfall trekking.

So funny that the little Tiger cub was walking all over Lee, he actually bit his bum too! Funniest thing i've experienced in a long time and Lee's face was a picture!



Tuesday morning the 4 of us got picked up early morning for the elephant training, really looking forward to it and had 6 other travelers with us doing the same excursion.
First we got there and learnt the Mahout elephant language and how to control the elephants and had a practice ride then we went up to see the Long Neck Tribe.. It was a bit of a con, there was a little area in the woods which had been cleared and then market stands selling the usual local crap with one of the Long Neck Karen people and on the other stalls were ladies from 3 other "tribes"... very hmm cultural??? I wish I took a photo just to show you how naff it was!

After lunch we went for our elephant trek, it was all in the jungle so that was cool but it was 2 hours long and I decided as soon as I got on the bloody thing that I didn't like it. I was also at the front with nothing to hold onto and our elephant was so hungry that it kept leaning down the mountain side to eat so every time it reached for food I thought I was going to fall off!
We ended our trek in the river and you could wash and bath our elephant. Lee and I weren't feeling that but Lora went in to the river with the rest of the group.
That evening we were being put up in a guest house not far from there, so we all got a lift there and dinner was served not long after.
The Changs were flowing after dinner and we all sat around together and got to know each other.
There were 2 lads from Perth; Blonde Tom & Dark Tom who were travelling together and then 3 girls who had been scuba diving in Koh Tao for a while; Emilie from Sweden, Melanie from HEMEL HEMPSTEAD and Zuzanna who's a Polish German. Another girl called Javiera who was from Chile was there too and she'd  met Zuzanna on the bus to Chiang Mai. I can't believe It only took 3 weeks of travelling to meet someone from the same area as us!

Day two after breakfast we trekked in the jungle to a waterfall  which was a lot of fun, it was nice to use my brain for a change as I've not been doing anything challenging for a while; a couple of games of Freecell is about as far as it goes! Was only an hour trek and a beautiful but extremely cold waterfall.. Everyone got in though and I took my waterproof camera which got some good shots :)

After the trek we went white water rafting which was fun, it was about grade 2 and blonde Tom & I both fell out as we hit a rock and going really fast at the time! Luckily the instructor came to my rescue as I was being dragged along by the water, I just remember being pulled by my life jacket!!
Once the river got slower we changed methods of transport and sat on a bamboo raft back to the our accommodation we stayed at the night before; had lunch and all went back to Chiang Mai where we decided we would all go to Pai! We already had accommodation booked for Thursday and turned out the Toms were also going too, so the 4 other girls thought they'd come along too :)

Chiang Mai was fun, lots to do and see and lots of good excursions to go on too... the waterfall trek and white water rafting was brilliant and even better... we made some good friends in such a short space of time :)

I'll put up about Pai in a few days.... i'm already in Cambodia but it's getting late.. i'll write it tomorrow when i'm sitting on the beach front with a ice cold beer, watching the world go by.

xxxxxx