Palm Springs Hotel and City Resort Chiang Mai

After our well-deserved holiday in Indonesia, we arrived back in Singapore to finally do some proper travelling again. Fortunately it could all start with the necessary comforts, as a couple of friends had kindly offered their outstanding apartment to us whilst they were on holiday! We had a couple of days to explore Singapore and off we went with the Lonely Planet and 2 cameras in hand. The easiest way to summarise Singapore is that it is all about eating and shopping ...

... i bambus rafting nidur 'a, fossa og fludir, forum i vatsslag og spyrnu a anni. Hressandi eftir skituga, svefnlausa og sveitta 3 daga. Settumst i trukkinn (sem var by the way thai style: pick-up med 8 manns aftan a pallinum. tak yfir.) og tad byrjadi strax ad rigna! va hvad vid vorum heppin.<br>Um kvoldid forum vid oll ut til ad fagna tvi ad vid klarudum tetta. eg hefdi aldrei truad tvi ad bresku stelpurnar vaeru typur i tetta. aldrei ad daema fyrirfram. a medan eg pakkadi ...

... guide gave us all shots of moonshine Thai whiskey. Not what I needed! I understood the trek I booked involved some hiking, but I had no idea what I had got myself into after 2 hours of almost all uphill walking, while periodically burping up the whiskey. Others actually had pity on me and my 3 or so hours of sleep (not to mention still in the clothes I went out in the night before). We ended up hiking for a total of 5 hours ...

... for the next two days! Hope you are all ok back home and if you read this feel free to post messages on the blog! Much love, ben and em x x x x P.S Happy 30th Birthday Craig - please don't let us read in the newspapers that a drama teacher from Birmingham has gone mental on a canal barge!!!! P.P.S Have a fab birthday night out SJB!!! P.P.P.S You have to work out what fried morning glory is......................answers on a postcard please............

We got into Chiang Mai on Sunday and stumbled upon the Sunday market, which is massive and takes up about 12 sqaure city blocks. We ate some really cool food including fried partridge eggs, fish sausage, squid on a stick, dumplings, soybean paste, longan tea, and milk tea ice cream. Afterwards, we went to the reggae bars right near our hotel. The bars are all centered around a ...

... and parked in front of a friends house, who came out in 10 minutes. <br><br>Then he pulled over in a town called Hang Dong and told me to get out--I knew this was not Central-- he pointed as if it were just down the street. I got out and asked a cop-- 6 kilometers. I flag another songthaew and finally made it to Central.<br><br>I find the yellow songthaews at Central and start asking drivers, who were all in one group--"You go ...

... noodles and fresh fruit all available at street stalls. Nice. Two days in Bangkok, however, is plenty. I soon hotfooted it onto a coach to the capital of the north - Chiang Mai - a beautiful city set in picturesque countryside. Chiang Mai is a real breath of fresh air after the hot air of Bangkok. It's much smaller and far more peaceful. Upon arriving i made two discoveries; 1. The people at my guest house 'Julie's' were really, really nice. 2. I'd been robbed on the bus ...

... as well as several others) had a credit line approved to buy an Apple computer, received a PIN number from DMV to change my driving record information on-line, and more. The list of things that I had to deal with just went on and on...for more than several years. Here's some critical information to limit the damage in case this happens to you or someone you know. As everyone always advises, cancel your credit cards immediately, but the key is having the toll free ...

... with a giant fan, a weird pair of sort of fisherman trousers and a rucksack to replace my little green bag....! Monday was our adventure day. Our first stop (with some girls from Germany) was an elephant ride, jokes! We had the greediest elephant in the world who ate through 4 bags of bananas, piggy! Jess switched places with the guide and sat on the elephants head with her legs behind its ears for a while. After the elephants we drove to a family of weavers in their ...

... The layers of color, the many hues of green stretching to the horizon were beautiful and calming. At end of the road we found a small hut that marked the entrance to the Doi Suthep National Park. From there we hiked to the summit, trying to enjoy the scenery but mostly focusing on our next breath. It was't grueling (not like the Grand Canyon which almost killed my brother Derek and I, or like the 11 km hike in Honduras that left ...