River Side Resort Chiang Mai

... and place it in the bottom of the floating offering with a couple of coins. This is for good luck and people can add other items depending on what problem they need help with. So, we bought a pretty flower offering with purple hibiscus and put the bits in ready for launching. A little bit of bother getting the incense and candle to light as the lighter didn’t work and the wind kept blowing the candle out. Eventually we sussed it out and our offering was ...

... animals managed to navigate their way through the trees. The journey was very long and finished off with the elephant walking through a quick flowing river.

The next step of our trek was visiting one of the hill tribes. We were taken to the Karen people. They are the biggest tribe in the whole of Thailand and are characterised by the different tunics they wear, with the unmarried females having to wear white all the time. Here we got to see how they live ...

... 2 Franzosen und unserem tollen Guide Saykam in verschiedene Eingeborenendoerfer. Zunaechst stand eine lange Fahrt mit dem Jeep an da wir in einer sehr abgelegenen Gegend nahe der burmnesischen Grenze wanderten. Wir bewegten uns in den 3 Tagen jedoch nicht nur zu Fuss weiter sondern reiteten auch am Ruecken eines Elefanten durch den Dschungel und machten ein Bambusrafting. Wir ...

... Very funny!

Next day went to the river to raft back to our van. We had pictured 4 hours sat on a raft sunbathing - nope!! 4 hours stood on a bamboo raft which was only just out of the water. We had a go at punting and it was fun going down the rapids. The views were amazing and meeting an elephant or 2 coming the other way isn't something you see everyday. We sang all the way, mainly camp songs/abba! Then ...

... la citta' per inoltrarsi nel verde delle montagne al nord della Thailandia.
Gelosa dell'avventura che li aspettava ho cominciato a lamentarmi della povera Simo che deve sempre lavorare :P cosi Noom ha deciso di portarmi con se come suo regalo di addio, anche grazie a sua moglie Saow e a sua sorella che si sono offerte di lavorare al posto mio! :D

Il trekking e' stato abbastanza faticoso ma la cena in ...

... different learning style.

I honestly don’t know if I am ever going to get used to squat toilets. They really attract every type of bug and I got so many mosquito bites every time I went to a new toilet. But I did like that I finally understood how toilets work because of Bruce and Wendy explaining the water pressure. When we were swimming in the river in Mae Rim, I probably should have thought about whether or not it was sanitary, but instead all we thought ...

... on. And that's why I didn't do a 2 or 3 day trek visiting these villages and ruining their culture by making the people into tourists attractions for money. But I guess money talks. Anyway there wasn't anything to really see there and I felt inrusive so I didn't enjoy that. Moved onto an Elephant camp where we were to have a play with the baby elephants and ride an adult elephant. No baby elephants to be had and when I asked about it they pretended they didn't know what ...

... have lunch and go swimming. We had some fried rice out of a bag that had been purchased at the market. It was not too bad. I went for a quick dip near the waterfall. The water was nice, not too cold. I decided to find some sun and read my book while Bill was taking photos of the waterfall. As I was navigate in the water to get to my book I slipped on a rock and fell into the water. Luckily I only bruised the side of my foot. It is very rocky and could have been a ...

... road. The girls were heading back home and so had "English' food like pork chops and pizza. Me and Pete kept it real with some Thai dishes and showed off, as most blokes do, by having some extra chillis. My food was something like small strips of pork with crackling around the edge, which was lovely until I bit down onto a bit of knuckle....
Had a few more beers at the free-pool-place, where we witnessed aforementioned drug deal, and went back to pack up kit ...

... quiet country) before we were told to get back on. Good news, the engine worked. Bad news, the brakes were buggered. As we crawled towards to border, this meant that whenever we got to the top of a steep hill, we were told to get out and walk down to reduce the weight of the bus! Amusing and not tooooo tiresome, but really added to the length and heat of the journey. Eventually arriving at Huay Xai, we had a mad scramble to get ...