The Gap Year Adventure....

helllooooo well since i last wrote i have done way more exercise than i have in the past year and im not enjoying it - exercise is the work of the devil!!

Saturday: today we slept in, had a BIG free late breakfast before getting a taxi all the way back across Bangkok to Kohsarn road and our next hotel - the Sawasdee Banglumpoo. This is our 13.00 per night wonder and was actually really nice! i was so so surprised! Cheap and cheerful but clean and not ridiculously small :-) That evening we went to see Spiderman 3 at the Imax at the Siam Paragon - the largest screen in Thailand! It was a really cool experience - pity the film wasn't so great! The shopping centre was IMENSE - it will probably give you a good idea when i say that on the 3rd floor was several shops selling Ferrari's, Lamberghini's (if that's spelt right!), lotus and other super cars, god knows how they got them onto that floor!!

Sunday: Today we just moved back to our joining hotel to meet our new group. We knew that it was going to be a lively trip when one guy turned up an hour late saying 'sorry, i was out drinking!' This was at 5pm! Dint do much other than get a briefing of the trip and go out for some food....

Monday: Today the travelling started again! Early in the morning (early being 9am!) we set off in a longtail boat down the Chao Praya River to the Wat Po temple, the home of the HUGE reclining buddha. Tom and I had already been to this before so the temple was pretty bring but the boat ride was cool and we got to feed the GIGANTIC fish in he river with bread again so it was well worth it!

After the canal tour we got on a 3 hour bus ride to Kanchanaburi, home to the infamous 'Bridge on the River Kwai'. Once we arrived we went on a salmor tour around Kanchanaburi and visited the Brige on the River Kwai (really should be spelt Kwae) and the Prisoner of war memorial. This was a truly humbling experience, 100,000 people died building the bridge and it was awful seeing all of the memorial plates. I never realised the magnitude of the horrors that occurred there, i had heard of the bridge on the river Kawi and had a vague idea but this really opened my eyes.

That night we went to the local night market and then on to a bar across the road form our guesthouse.

Tuesday:

Tuesday morning we set off at about 10am to board our big floating raft where we spent the day cruising down the river Kwai, swimming and visiting temples. Now when the itinerary said 'raft' and 'sleeping under tha stars' we expected a raft as in a basic bamboo structure but oh no - our raft had a roof, and came complete with electricity, a bar, a disco ball and even Karaoke! We visited the Dragon temple which had a RIDICULOUS amount of stairs that we had to climb barefoot! Once we reached the top we found a cave that we decided to climb down into - still barefoot - which was pretty cool! It was a really cool cave, full of bats so it stunk but there were loads of stalagtites and cool rock shapes. It was also lit by loads of different coloured lights which gave it a really surreal feeling!

We spent the night on the raft and needless to say everyone eded up very very drunk doign karaoke whilst floating down the river! It was a really cool night! Yes i did do the karaoke despite being sober, and yes i am aware (as is the rest of the group now!) that i cant sing at all!

"i just wana dance with somebody.....!"

Wednesday:

Wednesday was an early start with us first visiting the Jeath War Museum and then heading off to Erawan National Park where we spent the next few hours walking up the 7 levels of thge waterfall. Now that was a hard climb, especially in flip flops that cost 4.00 and are not made for climbing in the slightest! The waterfall was beautiful though and it was really nice to swim in the cool water after a ridiculouslt hot climb - the only problem being htat you ended up with several fish trying to eat you! Fish nibbbling at you is a really strange sensation, one i've decided i dont like - especially when the fish are pretty big!!

After leaving the waterfall it was ont o the tiger temple where we were able to sit with and have our photos taken with tigers. It was sad seeing the tigers chainedup but they all looked really healthy and Tong (our guide) explained that they had been rescued from various different places as cubs and now couldnt be released due to illness and being too tame. It was amazing being sat next to these gorgeous animals and slightly scary as we had been warned not to wear pink, red or orange as they may think that it is blood!! There are many other anilams at the temple from cows to peacocks and there was also an adorable 1 month old baby tiger cub that had been born in captivity at the temple. The monks look after all of the animals who are free (except the tigers obviously!) to roam around the temple grounds as they please. It was such a beautiful area and a really cool place to visit!

Needless to say the evening was spent at another bar (every night so far has been and we are 5 days in!) - tom and i left at 1am mindful of the fact that we had a 4 hour bus journy at 8am the next morning - most of the others didnt get back until 4am completely wasted!

Thursday:

We ended up leaving at 8:45 due to the fact that many of te group were hungover from the previosu night's activities :-P Ahh well, it gave me time for breakfast! We left on a 2 hour bus journey, stopped for 10 minutes and changed buses before continuing on another 2 hour jouney to Ayuthaya.

On arrival we grabbed some lunch before going on a tour of the picturesque ruins and temples spread across the town. It was really cool to explore the old ruins, especially at wat Mahathat where we could see the Buddha head surrounded by Banyan tree roots. The head has been slowly emerging from the ground for the past 100 years to its current position. Most of the Buddha statues int he temple are headless because they were cut off and sold to people within Europe as they were believed to contain jewels. The story of the Buddha head in the tree roots is that a robber buried the head and then forgot there it was and the tree roots have been slowly beinging it up over time. Its really strange to see this head surrounded by tree roots - imangine how wierd it would be to see it half out of the ground!!

After our tour we had some food and then boarded yet another overnight train to Chiang Mai. This wasnt quite as adventourous as the last one (aka no face pulling competitions) but by all accounts a few of the group members were up until 3am getting very drunk!

Friday:

After a night of very poor sleep we arrived in Chiang Mai, had a quick breakfast and shower and set off to do some elephant riding. This was much more scary than last time as we had a HUGE male elephant who was ridiculously greedy (he ate all of our food as well as anyone who happened to be in front of us!) as well as a mind of his own. He kept leaving the trail and wandering off the find something to eat - ending up pretty much standing only on his back legs at one point while he was trying to reach a branch he though looked particularly tasty!! I didnt really like this elephant place - at the Elephant Conservation Centre where we visited last time the elephants were kept in well maintaned surroundings with nice buildings and all looked to be in good condition. Here was another story - the few buildings that there were had either already fallen over or were about too and most of the elephants were bleeding from where their guides had been hitting them to control their direction. They used the same method of controlling their direction at the conservation centre but none of the elephants had been hurt there. Neither Tom nor I were impressed with this although the elephant ride itself was loads of fun.

Next was a visit to the hilltop temple of Doi Suthep. Tom and i amused ourselves by wandering around the antiques shops at the base of the temple as we had visited before and wern't all that enthusiastic to be there again! No i didnt buy anything, io restrained byself although tom is interested in a gong.... Watch this space!

After the temple we went the trekking shop to rent our trekking gear ready for monday. We had to rent smaller bags to carry our trekking gear for 3 days along with purchasing toilet paper, ever important here!

That evening we went to watch some Muay Thai (Thai Kickboxing) These wernt professionals as such - they ranged from age 8 to adult and were amazing! It is such a fast and brutal sport and so exciting to watch! After the 9 matches were over it was on to a local club (Bubble) to enjy some (awful) 'house' music which the rest of the gruop adored and Tom and I hated! We stuckl around for a few hours before leaving in search of some food around 2am - the others got back at about 5am!!

And that brings me to today, Saturday, where we only got up at 1.30pm and have eaten McDonalds and sat on the internet due to the fact that there is a MAJOR storm raging outside and you get drenched within 1 minute if you go out! When it rains here it really does rain and it's been happening a lot recently! We have had some gorgous, really hot days and then many others which are gloomy, overcast and wet. The thunderstorms really are incredible though - they make things shake!!

xxx