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!