M.R. Palace Hotel Lampang

... forest. It was also a jarring experience, being bumped up and down with every footstep! With skin seemingly tougher than leather, and tusks like the mammoth from Ice Age, it really was a big beast.<br>Got to hand feed him as a reward (a reward for the elephant... not a reward for me for surviving the bumps!)<br>The highlight was seeing the elephants all getting into a lake and showering with their keepers... one walked right by ...

... look em in the eye and tell me it doesn't effect ya.....sure did me! Great noble beasts and the pain and bugs and rain and mud and muck was all worth it....Shauna was sad to go and we had a great once in a lifetime adventure..... Time to pack up and get into our taxi back to Chiang Mai.....we shared one with Chad and Jill....they bought a pic...frame and all...sooo needless to say the taxi was very fullllll.....no worries though we managed....Chad and Jill were off to ...

... my camera cause off we went to the local town where al the mahouts live Supat included to get some stuff. Supat is great his english is not bad and he is telling me about the area....turns out two weeks prior a big storm rolled thru and only hit the resort...no power ofr a week....oh my buddah that would have sucked as no air conditioning...etc etc....so we pull into town....Wow this was the real thailand. Little huts and we go to the local store and we go in....awesome ...

... also...the locals call the water "Elephant wine"....you get it....ha hahahahahhaahahahahhahah not......the fish like it though....ohhh funny thing....any idea about how long an eley can ****.....seems like minutes....very wet burppy throaty sounding ones.....mmmmmmmmmm sniff sniff....the eyes water..gag for a bit...my mahout laughs his ass off pointing at me....they love this....must be the bananas....this is about where I coined tghe phrase...'OHHHH ...

... towns; various train journeys and, innumerable temples later we thought we should share some of our exploits with everyone. I'll let Bridget fill in the details, but it has certainly been an incredible adventure having encountered all sorts of wild animals and experienced so many different sights, sounds and tastes. Hopefully many of the photos speak for themselves. A` second installment will follow once we go South so watch out!!!! Bridget writes ..... We ...

... t get to see anything and had to take his word for it. As impressive as the old buildings were, we eventually had to leave to catch a bus to Chiang Mai. We were hoping to get another taxi back to town but were told that the only way back was by motorbike. We weren't about to ride on the back of a motorbike taxi with our backpacks, so we started off walking the 3k to ...

... the next morning (about 30 euro) persuaded us to wait one more day in Bangkok, which is never a problem. After some shopping and pampering (massage for sir, facial for madame) we relaxed for the evening. It's a shame that we can't travel like this more, 1 hour in the air versus about 10 on land, arriving on time before lunchtime. We spent the afternoon walking the old city and visiting some of the beautiful wats. Apparently there are almost as many wats in Chiang Mai (pop. 270,000 ...

... very obvious that Miss Julie was once Mr. Jules ...or something. Her voice is as deep as mine and I had to endure it while she gave me her sales pitch for signing up for a three day trekking tour. I eventually gave in as she promised me that four beautiful girls have already signed up to go. I couldn't say no after that. But the first order of business was to say goodbye to my good friends Danny and ...

... quite interesting including a night food market where we had a poor dinner - you win some, you lose some. Today we went to the zoo. It was frankly rubbish. Well the animals were nice enough (especially the pandas and koalas) but the place is set on the side of a mountain of 200 acres. It was only after lunch that we realised you're supposed to travel round in the special zoo buses. We hadn't seen any whilst ...

... was clean and quite cheap at 350 baht (about 5 quid). There were numerous other little guesthouses similar to our own, lots of small resuarants, massage parlours and internet cafes. The area had a really nice feel to it, the locals were all friendly and many of the foreigners were long-term residents, either attending courses in cooking or massage, or we guessed they had simply got 'stuck' here, unable to ...