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Chilling in Chaing Mai.

Trek was fantastic. Not really sure where to start so I'll try and remember back to the beginning.

Headed off in the morning of what everday it was 4 days ago. Met everyone else that was coming on the trek, about 10 I think. Stopped off to pick up some supplies (beer, whisky) and then headed out of the city. I was luck as it was a really great crowd of people from all over the world.

From left to right: Clint (Canada),Kathleen (USA), Isabella (Austria), Wes (USA), Peter (Holland), Tony (Spain), Gemma (England), Ronit (Israel), Eugene (Malaysia).

The trek started with a few hours was through some farm land. followed by lunch at one of the hill tribe villiages.



After lunch the trek got a bit more intense with some rough terrain and lots of hills. After a couple of hours we were all knackered and roasting so cooled off at a waterfall.

We got to the camp in the early evening. This was basically afew huts in the hills. One for sleeping, one for eatting, one for cooking, a toilet and a shower. One of the Thai guides set a fire for us but wasn't up to much and soon went out so I used my old camping skills to sort it out and soon had an impressive blaze. We than had dinner and started on the beer and whisky.

After dinner the playing cards came out and the drinking games started. After that its a bit hazy but Tony got upset that I made a lot of noise when I came to bed and started asking him for more blankets to which he replied (Hey man, I'm not your mummy!)

The next day of the trek was even better. The walking wasn't to hard on this day and after a couple of hours we reached another hill tribe village where we met our elephants which would carry us to our camp for the night.

Me and Gemma aboard a 40 year old Phant.

The elephant ride was fantastic and lasted about an hour. Our camp for the night was in a hill tribe village. The people in this village came from Burma (I think about 15 years ago). Some were christian and some buddist. We sat down to have some dinner and then the villagers came out and danced round the fire for us. After they had finnished they got us up and we all had a dance.

As it was now quite late we got the whisky and the cards out and started playing some more drinking games. I was sitting next to a couple of guys from the village and got chatting to them. They are trying to learn english but all they have to help them is a phrase book. They were doing pretty well with it but bacause it was a book they were having trouble with the pronunciation. We had a few whiskys and I helped them out which means they will probably now be speaking some english phrases with a scottish accent. One of them had a congo so we played that for a bit and drank some more.

I taught the guys some songs I know from sesame street and then amazed then with my snapping fingers and water dropping sound tricks. After that we were all abit drunk and I got quite sick. Our thai trek guide was very worried I would stagger off into the Jungle not to be seen again but luckily Gemma found me and gave me a push in the direction of the sleeping hut.

In the morning we got to speak to the hill tribe people some more and they had jewlery that had made for us to buy.

The hill tribe people were fantastic, really friendly. One of the most amazing things was meeting the local kids. They were all so happy all they time, running about playing and really excited to meet us all. The kids loved my digital camera so I spent some time making videos of them and then playing them back.

It's strange to think about growing up in a village in the jungle, never having any computers to play with or credit cards to worry about, but they are all really happy and it makes me think that the things we think are important in the west just cause us problems.

We headed off from the village and after walk through some plantations we came to the next camp where we ahd lunch and then boarded bamboo rafts. The bamboo rafting was fantastic and we sailed along for about an hour on the rafts, finally coming to our destination and going for a quick swim before the 2 hour truck ride back to Chaing Mai.

It was quite sad that the trek was over cos we all had such a great time. We all went out to dinner together after and took our tour guide Daing along with us for a meal. We then headed out to a fantastic roof top bar for some beers.

Today we all stuck together again and hired motorbikes. It was a long day but we rode on some beautiful winding mountain roads with some amazing views.

We visited a fantastic waterfall and also saw a buddist temple.

Need to shoot now and grab some dinner then meet up with everyone for drinks.

Stay tuned for more fantastic adventures....

Yo,

News to date:

Finished my tour of Kanchanaburi. Was tempted to stay abit longer, but took the advise of an english guy I met who said "Best to leave a place while its still good, before it gets boring.". Seems like a good idea to me, also means there are afew things I haven't done there that I can do when I come back.

The last day in Kanchanaburi was good fun, if abit of an effort. We were going to see the Errewan waterfall, which is a series of waterfalls in seven steps. The idea being each step had a water fall and a resting/swimming bit. If you were knackered you didn't have to go all the way to the top of the 7th step. As usual transport was in the back of a pick up truck, but I still haf the motorbike, so I asked the guide if I could follow behing the pick up. At first he wasn;t too happy about it but I gave him some hassle and he said it would be ok.

The mistake that I had made was not asking how far it was to the waterfall. I just assumed like most trips it would be 15 to 20mins max. But I was wrong. I had been following behind the pickup for about 45 minutes when I released I was nearly out of fuel and in the middle of no where! I kept going however, knowing that thai people sell anything and in the worst case I was sure someone could take some fuel from their tank for me. Luckily just as the fuel guage sank bellow empty I saw a petrol station. Once filled up on a full tank I shooted off again to catch up with the pickup.

When we got to the waterfall park enterance I headed for the bike parking area where it all went wrong! As I was locking the wheel I felt my feet burning. When I looked down I was covered in little red ants and realised I had parked on their nest! I ran away as quick as I could and shook all the ants off my sandles but was left with lots of red bite/sting marks.

When I got to the first step of the waterfall I grabbed a beer and started the accent.

I am on the right, standing on the very slippery log

The waterfalls were quite impressive and swimming was great fun except when the fish tried to nibble at you. There was a rock which the guide told us we could slide down. I wasn't too sure but gave it a shot. After realising it wasn't too dangerous I gave it another go, on my front this time. Again, great fun but then I realised I had ripped my short right down the front. For the rest of the day I had the great experience of people laughing at me and saying things in lanuages I couldn't understand while I tried to hold my shorts together.

Sliding down the white limestone torn up my boardies/bathers!

I made it to the seventh step which wasn't too hard although most folk stopped at the fourth.

I didn't realise that after the waterfall we weren't going staight back. There were lots of other tours to be collected and dropped off. So I was on the bike for some time after that. I met a rather brave Israeli girl on the tour who wased to ride with me on the bike. I say brave because just 5 minutes earlier she had seen me riding with no hands, moving my arms in a swimming motion much to the amusement off all in the back of the pickup.

At the end of the day I was in alot of pain. Turned out I had ridden for 250kms on the bike. It had taken 2 full tanks of fuel and the engine was close to melting. Not only that but I was soaked to the skin as it was raining most of the time. My eyes were also really sore as I had to keep up with the pick up which did 60mph most of the way, at that speed the big thai rain drops really sting the eyes.

So got back to Bangkok and decided I didn't want to stay there, so jumped on an over night train to Chaing Mai in the north. There were no beds left so I had to make do with a seat in air con 3rd class. The aircon sounded like a good idea at the time but ended up being far too cold.

Met up with a couple of Isreali girls on the train called Ronit and Seffie and got chatting to them about places to stay in Chaing Mai. They were headed to a place which catered mainly for Isrealies so I had a look. Decided to head into town after to see what else was on offer in the accomodation.

Found a nice place in the guide book called Julie Inn. So me and Ronit staying there in a 5 bed dorm just now for only 60Baht per night (about 80pence). Tomorrow I am off on another trek. This time it is to stay with some of the hill tribes of northern Thailand and also includes some rafting and Elephant riding. I will probably be out of range for afew days if anyone is trying to call of email but will be straight back in the internet cafe with photos to put online when I return in 3 days!

Yo,

Today was the second day of my trek in Kanchanaburi. In the morning I headed up to the elephant camp with a polish guy and english guy who were staying at the guest house. We got to ride the elephants and then take them into the river for a bath.

This was a pretty fantastic experience. Getting the hang of staying on wasn't too hard although when the elephants walked down a steep hill holding on was a challenge. When they went into the water we had to shout to the guides, who didn't speak much english, that we had cameras and phones on us. They used their elephant sticks to hang our stuff up on a treet so it didn't get wet.

Once in the water the guides shouted commands to the elephants to get them to duck under the water and roll over etc. Apparently its true that an elephant never forgets, they learn by emulation and can be taught about 50 verbal commands. A bathing elephant is a bity lick a bucking broncho and you can only stay on for so long. Once you are off the challenge isn't so much getting back on as fighting the very strong current in the river.

We rode the elephants back to the camp after they'd had their bath and then we headed back to camp for lunch. Next stop was the tiger temple which is a Tiger sanctuary run by monks. The tigers are pretty amazing close up and the monks seem to have them under control.

Not much more to tell about today, other than I'm really tired and hungry so heading back to camp for dinner now. Tomorrow we are going diving at a waterfall and after that who knows. I am supposed to head back to bangkok tomorrow but might hang about here abit longer as therer are some things I haven't done yet and I can;t decided where I want to be after. Thinking about either heading up to Chang Mai or down to Ko Chang. Met a guy today who was telling me there are some fantastic mountain roads in Ko Chang which are good to motorbike round. Given bike hire is so cheap here (2 pounds a day) I have got another one today so going to ride back to camp now.

Yo, Currently I am in Kanchanabur. So far as I know this is a little town north of Bangkok.

I started my trek this morning, after about 1 hours sleep. It first involved alot of standing about due to a major lack of organisation. Eventually I was on my was in a minibus with a bunch of japs and one english girl. The first stop was a war cemetery for all those service men who lost their lives in the building of Death Railway.

The railway was ordered by the Japanese to link Siam with Burmah for supplied during WWII. The result of this was that hundreads of thousands of POWs and civilians lost their lives due to mistreatment and malnutrition. The weird thing was that most of the tourists at the cemetery were Japs. Very strange. Kinda like going to the Imperial War Museum in London and finding it full of German toursits. Anyway, after that I went to a very interesting museum about the Bridge over the River Kwai and the building of the death railway. After that I got to walk over the bridge.

Walking over the bridge is one of these things you will never see in a western country. It is very trecherous! The bridge is way to busy with tourists and the walk way is only a meter wide. If you slip it is straight into the water! Following the bridge we went for lunch on a floating restaurant made of bamboo and then had a look at some elephants. After that we went to a waterfall. This was cool. There were lots of Thai people here, all the kids were swimming and diving off the rocks. Had it not been for the fact I was carrying a digital camera, ipod and mobile phone I would have joined them. I was on my own as no one on the bus spoke english, except for an english girl who was quite strange. So I took a walk up the waterfall.

There were a couple of young Thai girls laughing and pointing at me and then they came and started talking to me. I had no idea what they were saying but they kept pushing me about. I eventualloy realised they wanted to get their photo taken with me so I happily obliged and got a photo for myself to. Kinda reminds me of my PR days in Magalluf where all the holiday makers wanted to get a pic with the most fantastic PR on the strip on the last night of their holiday =).


I had some time to kill so I bought a beer and watched the kids diving into the plunge pool. Some thai people kept trying to shout me over but I reckon they were after money so I just smiled and waved. We then headed to the train station for a ride in the train on the death railway. This was very cool. The train was so old. The carridges were all made of wood on the inside. I took a seat next to the strange english girl and grabbed a beer. She was nice enoguh but seemed very antisocial. She said she had come over with 18 friends and spent most of the time in Vietnam. When ever we were with the tour guide and were told to go somewhere the english girl would just go off on her own. Maybe beause she was so used to being with people she knew. Anyway I got her talking and told her how sad I felt when we were in the cemetery. All the graves had messages from the family about the person who had died and those they had left behind. Stuff like "In the light you shall be remembered and in the darkness you shall not be forgotten." As well as more personal stuff like "Goodbye Ron, you died for your country but your wife and son will never be complete without you."

Reading the graves was quite upsetting and the english girl told me that her grandfather was one of the POWs who had died building the death railway. After a few stops the english girl got off as she was only on the one day trek and I am on the 3 day. I sat on my own, feeling kinda lonely, so got some beers from a guy who kept waliking up and down the train with a bucket of drinks. Unfortunately I had afew too many and fell asleep and missed my stop.

I don't think it would have mattered if I had been awake as I didn't know where my stop was, all the station signs wew written in Thai, and our tour guide had disappered. I got off the train at the last stop with some Japs and realised I had no where to go. Luckily I had my mobile and the number for the tour company. I gave them a call and they send someone to get me. They guy took me to this guest house on the river kwai and sorted me out with a hut to stay in. It was only about 7pm tho and I was feeling bored. I chucked my bags in the hut and asked the guy on the desk to give me a motorbike.
He took me to a little rental place and they took my passport and 150baht (about 2 pounds) off me for 24hours use of a bike. The guy asked if I knew how to ride (although never even asked to see my licence) and I said yes. He gave me the bike and said on you go, anf then I realised it wasnt anything like a UK bike!

The bike has 4 gears arranged as N1234, rather than the usual 1N234. To put it up a gear you pressed down on the gear shift rather than pulling it up and there was a seperate pedal for changing down. There was no clutch either and I was very confused. It didnt take me long however to get to grips with it and soon I was flying round the streets beeping the horn like a regular Bangkok taxi driver.

I stopped into a Pizza place and got some pizza, garlic bread with cheese and a beer, then headed off to find a petrol station as the bike came with an empty tank! The woman at the petrol station filled the bike up from a cocacola bottle full of petrol which was quite worrying! But everything seemed ok and I went for a drive along the banks of the river and eventually eneded up in this net cafe.

I think tomorrow I am going caving, treking in the jungle and riding elephants in the river. I'm not 100% about this tho as the people dont speak much english, but I will see tomorrow.

Well I am still here, in Bangkok.

Last night was terrible, got home about 4pm in the afternoon from wandering about the city, then fell sleep. Woke up about 11pm wandered about abit then Alison phoned, so good to hear her voice when I am feeling alone.

I tried to get back to sleep but it was one of those nights where my mind wouldnt stop thinknig about stuff. I gave up trying to sleep and headed back to the internet cafe about 2am. Had to fight my way through the lady boys on Khao San Road but made it here in one piece. Chatted to folk on MSN for a while then headed back to the hostel and listened to a couple of cafe del mar albums until the sun came up. When the sun did come up, I fell asleep and slept through my alarm until 3:30pm! Now my sleeping pattern is a total mess and I didn't get to see any temples.

Decided to give up on sitting about Bangkok and booked my self on to a Trek. We leave the hostel in 6 hours from now and the itinery is as follows:

Leave at 7am in the morning (its 1:17 now!) and get a bus to the war cemetary of allied prisoners followed by the war museum. The we head to the Bridge over the River Kwai. After lunch we go an an Elephant Safari finally taking a train along Death Railway. The we go to see Tiger cave and finally make camp by the river kwai for some canoing, fishing, swimming.

On the second day the morning will involve a light trak to a waterfall for a picnic lunch. After lunch its a "streuous" paddle in the river kwai and then apparently we get "pulled" by the company river boat.

On the third and final day There is some walking and more war memorial stuff before arriving back in Bangkok in the evening. Anyway I am sure I will tell you all about what actaully happens and hopefully have some great pictures to put online. The reason I havent got any yet is that I don't know anyone who can hold the camera and don't trust a stranger in this city.

So after I woke up rather late today, I had some breakie, then went to collect my washing frmo the Thai family that were doing it for me. After that I went nline for a bit and asked the girl at the tour desk what I should do tonight. She recommended the market at Phadpong which is Bangkoks Redlight District.

Its the strangest redlight district I have ever seen. Fair enough there are "go go bars" but there were less prostitutes on the street than in any other part of Bangkok I have been to. Weird.

So I was at the market and I got some new shorts and T-Shirts and had some fun haggling.

Now I am here, back in the internet cafe. Heading in to the unknown tomorrow and the possiblilty of 3 days without a mobile phone signal or internet access terrifies me. If only I could afford a satellite phone with GPRS!

Look for updates on Monday night when I return!

Yo!

I am now in Bangkok with no mates and no plan.

Left Glasgow at about 4pm on Tuesday 19th of July. Said the most painful goodbye of my life to my girlfriend Alison who I have been sharing my life with for the past 8 months. Then had about 24 hours of Travelling to get to Bangkok.

Travel was Glasgow -> London -> Dubai -> Bangkok. I had no where to stay upon arrival so checked the Lonely Planet book and got a bus to a hotel which appeared reasonable.

The hotel was called the Premier Inn and seemed to have a good review. It was 900 Baht for a double room with en suite and breakfast included. That works out at about 13 Pounds. Once I was in the room it was about 9:30pm local time. I gave Alison a call to tell her how much I missed her then went out of a walk. Turned out that phone call cost the same as the room for the night so my next priority was to get a Thai sim card for my mobile.

After a trip to the good old 7-11 I was sorted and had an Orange Thai sim card, (+6640446489 if you want to call or text). Next on the list was to get smoe food as I hadn't eatten since the plane. I had noticed a Pizza Hut some way back so proceeded to walk there (Have had too much Thai food over the last few months working in the Thai Restaurant).

I was in an area of Bangkok called Thanon Sukhumvit which is quite a new development. There is one very busy road going through the district and I walked the full length of it to get to Pizza hut. Unfortunately on my arrive Pizza Hut was closed :'( so I walked back to a 24hour Thai cafe.

The cafe served western food aswell but I figured I'd make a start on eatting Thai in Thailand so had some Chicked Garlic stirfry with rice and a Singha beer. Walking back to the hotel was quite interesting. As before when I was in Kuala Lumpur, I knew that everyone could see I was a white european and therefore a tourist with money to spend. It took me a little while to get used to ignoring everyone that shouted at me beacuse if you even glance over at them they won't leave you alone. This includes people who want to take you to have a suit made, beggars (usually with small children or missing limbs), taxi drivers, tuk tuk drivers (Who screach to a halt and try and get you in there cab, and of course prostitues and lady boys shouting "Hey sexy man, where you go!". I managed to get through most of this ok but one of the lady boys blocked my path and tried to get his/her hands in my pockets so I had to run away.

When I got back to the hotel I decided I didn't want to be here anymore so started thinking about where to go. The obvious choice seemed to be out of Bangkok but I couldn't decied where. After considering Pattaya, Ko Change, Ko Samet and Ko Samui I realised I needed abit more time to think and plan. I got the guide book out again and tried to decide which part of Bangkok would be best to stay in next. Banglamphu sounded interesting so I called up a guest house there and made a booking, then checked out my current lodgings.

I figured a Tuk Tuk would be an interesting way to get there as it was on the otherside of town. Finding one wasn't easy but the driver didnt speak any english and wanted to take me to buy some apples first. After some arguing and pointing at the map we where in our way. In the end I had to be a back seat driver and give the guy directions as he seemd to have no clue about that part of town. After getting to the guest house and checking in I realised I had made a mistake.

It was only about 2 pounds for the room for the night, but the bed was solid, the canal it looked out over was rank and worst of all there was no powerpoint from which to charge my iPod! I set of to put some washing on and familiarise myself with this part of town. I tried to get to a temple to check it out but couldn't find a way across the motor way so just walked aimlessly for a bit.

I eventually found myself on a busy road with lots happening. I check the guide book and found that it was Khao San, a very popular area with tourists. It was very busy with lots of stalls, shops restaurants and guest houses. I found a nice Air Conditions McDonalds (by this time was drenched in sweat with all the walking) and got a big mac meal (only 1.50 pounds) and read the guide book.

The guide book talked about afew different guest housesin the area which sounded ok, so I took a look around an eventually booked my self into a place called New Joe. This was more like it. A bit more expensive but it had a nice restaurant and bar on the ground floor, laundry services and a travel agent, as well as the all important friendly english speaking staff. I booked my self in for a couple of nights, £6.50 per night for a double room with aircon, shower, toilet and balcony.

The room wasn't the best, the shower had no cubicle for example, the whole toilet room was the cubicle which is weird. The balcony it about 1 square meter and looks over the hostel next door which is currently a building site. Aside from that the room seemed clean and so far free from bed bugs. I sat down for five minutes and work up 3 hours later, not the best as I almost had my sleeping pattern sorted out. Anyway headed out and found a Boots the Chemist, so got some shampoo and shaving gel and then headed to the internet cafe where I am now writing this.

So now I need a plan. I think I will head out of bangkok in the next couple of days. Ko Samui seems the best option at the moment. I could fly there for £40 or get a bus and ferry for about £7. Once there I can chill on the beach and hopefully make some friends. Alison has mentioned that she might beable to come over which would be amazing but I will have to wait and see what happens. Duncan has said he will come to but seeing as he never turned up to Majorca, Gatecrasher or Glasgow almost everytime he said he is coming for a visit I don't see this happening.

I am going to head for a walk along Khao San road now and see if I can find some speakers for my iPod, then back to the Hostel to have some dinner and maybe a lonely beer.

Tomorrow I will try and sort out smoe webspace and get some pictures online, as my University account has just closed down (not bad going seeing as how I left uni 2 years ago).

Anyway, stay tuned and hopefully I will have some Fantastic Adventures to report soon =)