Buffalo Hill Guesthouse Chiang Rai

... no idea why. We were later asked by some school girls to pronounce some Thai words into a tape-recorder for a school project !<br><br>The owner of our guesthouse introduced herself as Pi-Nong, when we tried to pronounce her name she explained that there are 5 tones in Thai and then said Nong, Nong, Nong, Nong and Nong - apparently demonstrating the difference - we couldn't hear it, we use tones to change emphasis not words and it seems Thai will be tough to learn. Still after a few ...

... and not workers. When we return to Bangkok in five weeks, hopefully from Vietnam if all goes to plan, we then need to use our Working Visas. We sat in a Bangkok Airport Cafe for about 6 hours waiting for our delayed flight to Chiang Rai...I drank a load of coffee and unusually Ju drank beer!! She did have one expresso as she was so tired and miserable and it did liven her up a bit which was nice but her going outside to check the ...

... but I thought to myself **** it I am in Thailand! We entered club'sperm' what a name!But left after about half an hour due to the ****** Thai punk/rock music and general fatigue. Earlier on in the evening we had been joined by the Thai English teacher at the centre and a friend; so it was that I found myself riding home on the back of an open topped SUV (of which the door opend and I almost fell out!). We got home and I fell asleep, finally waking 10hours later!

... museums, but I had a whole bunch of questions brewing my my mind about the hilltribes, and the way they are exploited in tourism, that I was quite interested in this museum. It was small, but gave me a bit of a better understanding. I wish I had taken my notebook with me, so transcribe some of the interesting things that I learned on to this blog, because of course I have forgotten the most of it. I mostly remember what I read about the Karen long-neck ...

... in Fang. We then set off at a pretty brisk pace to do the next 40km. After about 20k I was flagging too hot and my bum was sore. I dropped back and stopped for a few minutes and stretched and was then able to regain the tail of the peleton. Then the road became much hillier and we crossed into the next valley funnily the climbing made me feel better and we were soon going along the side of the Kok river valley. Cycled through little ...

... else to do. The finally arrived about 7pm looking mighty tired and ****** off. Their gibbon experience was an experience!! First day a nine hour trek..yes people and nine hour trek into the jungle. Wet, hot and very muddy. they zipped about a bit before decamping in a tree house with a friendly rat, squat toilet and not a lot of food. The next day another five hours trekking and the same sort of ...

... hassle in the tribes to buy souvenirs &amp; local handicrafts. The highlight of the day for me came at the end, with a visit to a local hot spring where I was able to totally relax and enjoy the pool pretty much to myself for a good hour. Bliss to the weary trekker! Tomorrow I plan to move on from Chiang Rai, either to Chiang Khong or directly across the border to Laos. This may well be my last night in Thailand for the foreseeable therefore..

... going to Chiang Mai, we were sprayed with water. This again is in celebration of the Thai New Year. The wetter you become, the more luck you will have in the coming year. We were already getting lucky, as the bus station said there was room on a minibus leaving (today, 4/11) to return to Chiang Mai. The bus system just doesn't go from Pai to Chiang Rai. But we felt ourselves "lucky" and booked passage back to Chiang Mai. The driver was very reasonable in that we ...

... a few days to meet up with dabs and trev, a couple of mates from back in bury. dabs had been out earlier in the year, and trev is his sister's boyfriend. we had a couple of days of fun in bangkok before they went off to koh phnagan, and i came back up to chiang rai. i finished at mirror yesterday, and moo has given me a letter of sponsorship which will help me get my visa for next year. i'm also going to get an international driving licence whc=en i return to the uk ...

... them on it when they started using them as food preservatives in export food products, though. The dairy industry anywhere in the world is no better of course. Livestock feed routinely includes antibiotics. Still, Thai conceptions of health are quirky. For some reason, Thais get a form of diabetes that seems to come and go. It's typically a contributory cause of death also, usually one of four for some reason. Maybe they're ...