Lampang Hotel

... again....the weather is great a lil rain...and cloud....not bad at all. Off we go to find our Eley's....sure enough right were we left them. About here I find out why my eley is hobbled....turns out she is a great big "Gai"....thai for Chicken. Seems I find out in broken english that she freaks out at the weirdest stuff and runs for the hills....last time she ran...the mahout was on and he went for a huge tumble....nice ta know..as you don't realize how high up you are ...

... a tree......absofreakinlutly covered in dirt......can't blame her as I notice a plague of flies swarming right about the area I sit...yayyyyyyy for me. So in a cool way we unchain her and again she is hobbled so we unhobble her and she drags the chain out of the jungle and folds it up (it is really cool to watch her do it...I got some video) and we load her up with it....and I shout "Mai Long!!!" and she lays down and we try to beat the mud off her....no problem...she ...

... fat elephant and he will kick your ass...... Now my gal was plenty big... and I was not going to call her fat for obvious reasons. Pung Kwat was her name and my mahout was...lungajlajsdhfoyuhl....or something like that I will call him Bob from now on. She was about 4 or 5 tonnes....I not quite the same....my mahout was a short guy and about 1/3 my weight...he started babbling at the big gal and she did exactly what he wanted her to do....not sure if these ...

... escapes and it was quite frightening at times as my bike wasn't quite of the highest quality, which meant I had to work twice as hard and still managed to get nowhere! Steve and I eventually took it in turns as it was almost like riding a bike at the gym! Ayutthaya reminded us of Sukhothai with old temple ruins. Very pretty. We saw much of the city in the afternoon and then relaxed in the hammocks at our guest house for the evening, ready for our early start to Pak Chong.

... This train was first class with air con and reclining seats!!! Chiang Mai was quite different - busy, with a lot more tourists. We found ourselves among young backpackers from around the world who have taken time out to travel, some for up to 5 years before they settle down!!! One temple that we visited had a monk sitting in a glass case and it took us a while to work out that it was actually a wax model and not a 'David Blaine". It was quite spooky ...

... were full. We said we would stand and were sold a ticket. Once on the bus, we discovered that they had done the same for about 40 other people as well. We were crammed into the aisle like sardines, where we stood, unable to move, for 2 hours. We only thought the train was bad - the bus was so much worse. We spent the evening in Lampang, walking around the Walking Street Market and taking in small-town life.

... to other types but very good. Finishing that a major downpour ensued and we found ourselves at a bit of a loose end. Our plan was to visit the Sunday walking street which is highly rated and sounded like the market in Luang Prabang but in this rain it seemed a bit mad. In the end we bought our long intended umbrellas and braved the rain, thankful that it stopped after about 2 hours. In the mean time we found that the walking street was just like Luang Prabang which is great as it's a ...

... but they were surprisingly outgoing and friendly, unlike the Longnecks. Day 3 was more trekking through the jungle to visit the Lisu Tribe and then go white water rafting. It was a fun three days and like I said, for the money, I was not disappointed. But I'm sure there are less touristy options for things like this farther north. I'll probably head up that way next to see what's going on.....

so here's * quick upd*te on our trekking shenn*****ns, * longer upd*te will come next time... we org*nised * 3 d*y trek through our hostel to the south west of chi*ng m*i, h*ving st*rted super e*rly on the wed we h*d * d*mn gd bre*kie to send us on our w*y *nd left m*king oiur w*y first to * loc*l m*rket so our guide could get *ll the food for the next 3 d*ys. There were 9 of us on the trek 2 germ*ns, 2 *ussies *nd the rest english ...

... nothing for the rest of the day! The remainder of our time was spent at the Blue Diamond restaurant around the corner form our guest house. It served great coffee and a decent selection of home made and organic food (how healthy are we?!), plus it was a great place to watch the hippies come and go. Sadly it was soon time to move on once again. Our next stop was Pai, in the corner of north-west Thailand...