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

hellooooooooooooooooo!!

Well we arrived back in Bangkok on Saturday and it was raining, and i mean raining! The weather hadnt got any better by monday, the first day of our trip so we wern't hopeful!

Koh Samet is a paradise island about 3 hours from bangkok, about 30mins off the coast. It is a national park and is absolutely gorgeous, there is nothing to do apart from scuba diving, watersports and lounging on the beach. Slight problem when the loudest/worst storms i have ever seen are hitting the island and the whole of Thailand! The rain didnt stop the entire time we were there which was unfortunate as it was our only real beach relaxing time until we go to Spain. We were both cold wearing jeans and long sleeves, we laughed at this when we found out that it was 33 degrees! The past 2 weeks had been 40 or above so we were finding 30 cold! God help us when we get back to good old English summer!

Due to a lack of anything else to do I decided to give scuba diving a go and see if my dodgy ears would actually equalise - they did! so now i have my first level scuba diving qualification which i am extremely happy with seeing as i've wanted to do this since i was 11 (dont worry Dad, i forgive that IOU!)! Due to the awful weather the visibility wasnt great, max 4 metres but i did see a HUGE puffa fish and loads of smaller fish. The coral was awesome too, blue and bright orange! The first place they took me to to dive was further out in the sea, the waves were 3 meters high which made me go really green, especially as the dive boat we were on was TINY! We had just started to kit up to get in when a huge wave crashed over the front of the boat, hitting me in the face - needless to say we moved to a different area! The dive instructor later said that we would have capsised if that wave had hit us side on!!! The second place we went in we got back ut again after 5 minutes because the visitbility was only about 2 feet max and there was a really strong current which separated our group. 3rd time lucky as they say! the next dive was perfect, i went down to 8metres no problem.

Due to the time we had wasted with all the other abandoned attampts i made my second dive the next day (Friday). My right ear was playing up loads and it took me forever and a LOT of going up and down to equalise but i finally made it and did all of the necessary skills to pass my PADI Scuba Diver! I didnt have time to do the open water as this btakes 4 days and i only had 3 - hopefully ill be able to do this in Spain or England at a later date! Mags - are you up for a trip!!??

Friday afternoon it was back on the boat and a 4 hour taxi ride back to the hotel which i have so far forgotten to mention! The hotel is AMAZING! bearing in mind that we have been sleeping on the floor, this hotel was awesome! We arrived by taxi and our bags were carried onto a trolley by the porter while we went to check in, our bags then arrived in the room without us even having to say where we were!! There was also a cool outside landscaped pool area with poolsode bar which we would have enjoyed if it hadnt been stormy! well we were impressed anyway!!

Thats all for now - hope eveything is ok

cant wait to see you all

xxxxxxxxxxx

Hello! well we have now said goodbye to our first tour group and have just completed our second tour (treasures of the north) which took us from Bangkok to Chaing Mai then back to Bangkok.

Monday:

We went to Sukhothai (the first capital of Thailand) we stayed in basic, cosy rooms beside some rice fields which was gorgeous. We spent most of the day travelling so by the time we got there we just went to the pool of a nearby hotel for an hour or so before having a buffet of traditional Thai food for tea. The food was gorgeous, one thing i have learned since being here is that EVERYTHING is so so spicy!! Even Tom is finding it spicy!!

On tuesday we went on a bike ride to the Sukhothai historical park which is basically a load of old ruined temples. It was so so nice just to ride through them and stop and wander round them. Both Tom and i much preferred these huge old ruins to the temples that are still in tact! There was something incredible about gigantic stone statues that were hundreds of years old - much much regal than everyhting covered in gold as is the way in every other temple!
We stopped and had a picnic lunch next to one of the temples before carrying on our bike ride. Doing it by bike was so much fune, it's AGES since i rode a bike! The temerature was 44 degrees which made it very sweaty and a bit harder but it was still fun!!

Wednesday started with a 4.5 hour bus journey to Lampang which is the only Thai-town to still use colourful horse-drawn carriages as a means of transport - of course ths was somehting we had to do!! Tom and I both felt really bad though because the 'horse' turned our to be a small, rather tired looking pony! Nevertheless the 30 minute ride around Lampang was cool and a good was of seeing the main parts of Lampang (there isnt much to see really!). Before the horse ride we all visited a local herbal spa for massages and mud-packs which was great fun! I really am not flexible enough for these Thai massages though! They bend and twist me in so many different ways and try to get me to touch my toes which really hasnt happened for a good 10 years! The boys opted out of the mud-packs for the sake of being manly and just had the Thai massage - Tom was left commenting on how many different times his back had cracked!!

That evening we were having a lovely meal on the Wang River bank when the heavens opened, and i mean OPENED!! I have never seen lightenng like it, nor heard thunder so so loud!! It really was incrediible to watch - instead of lightening every few minutes it was every few seconds pretty much continuously!! OUr accomodation that night was in a guesthouse where we slept pn matresses on the floor as the locals do! Despite my initial shock ('oh my god where are the beds!?') they proved to be very very comfortable and a great experience! I was highly confused in the orning as to what i was doing on the floor though!

Thursday was my favourite day of the whole trip so far. We visited an Elephant Conservation Centre just outside Lampang where we started by seeing the elephants having their morning bath which was so so cool! Their Mahout (trainer) went into the water riding them and then srcubed them which the elephants loved! After that we saw an elephant show. I hated the idea of seeing an elephant show after seeing them in the wild in Africa but it was really really good, less of a show than a demonstration. The 'show' was demonstratin how the elephants were used in the logging trade and the different ways in which they pulled, pushed and picked up the logs. AFterward swe fed them with sugar cane and bannanas. There was a really cute baby elephant (about 11 months old) which tom and i both fell in love bith and so fed loads and loads of bannanas!! Im sure you will see it ont he photos - we took loads!

After the show we went on elephant rides. This was a 30 minutes trek through the water where they had bathed and then up though the jungle - it just about beats the 10 minute ride you get at zoos!! It was the most incredible experience - i enjoyed it so so much!! At the end of the ride we went past a pen which was separated form the rest of the elephants. This held a mother elephant and her baby which was just 1 month old! It was the cutest thing i have ever seen!! Obvuiously loads and loads of photos were taken, no wonder my memory card is nearly full!!

Once the ride was finished we visited the gift shop and bought some paper made from elephant dung (it really doesn't smell at all!!)
before going next door to the worlds first elephant hospital. This was so so sad. We saw an 11 month old baby whose foot had been blown off after it stepped on a landmine and also a 46 year old adult who had suffered the same. The adult was in the guiness book of world records for being the first elephant to undergo surgery of this kind and also for the most medical professionals involved in a procedure - there were 150 people involved! It was so sad seeing these animals with only 3 feet and obviosuly their size makes it so much harder for them. The big elephant had lost 30cm from her leg which stil hasnt healed properly (8 years after the operation) and is having problems with the leg son her other sides as they are struggling to take the extra weight so keep getting sores and infected. The baby is doing much better, she only lost 10 cm andd being a baby her muscles have been able to grow more and faster to support the extra weight. Her small size also helps. It was just so sad - the mines were in Burma and the elephants were rescued from their :-(

We were picked up from the elephant hospital by the local people we were going to spend the night with and taken to visit the Karen hilltribe in a remote village. These people still live very very basically and make cloth trough traditional weaving methods. I took some cool photos and bought 3 hanging decoration thins which you see everywhere in Thailand - don't really know where i'm going to hang them now on second thoughts but hey they cost 1.00 for the three and were supporting some poor local people.... Thats my justification anyway!! They are pretty and blue, need i say more?

We then travelled on to the homestay where we were sharing 4 to a room, again sleeping on the floor. The house was gorgeous - very simple and traditional but beautiful! Some children from the lcoal school came and played traditional Thai instruments for us and then tried (!) to show us how to play them which was great fun! We then had a northern Thai khantoke dinner which involved 4 poeple sitting on the floor around a raised circular table. It was great fun and the food was gorgeous!! After dinner we were treated to some Traditional thai dancing. The girls did one where they held lit candles between their fingers and twirled around really gracefully - not dropping hot wax on themselves at all. They then picked 3 girls from our group (yes i was an unfortunate one!!) and we had to do the same! Let's just say iu wasnt graceful, the wax did drop on me and i dont do twirling!! Honestly i wasnt that bad bt no where near as good as them, apparently it was a dance that the King's daughter had done for him and was now a really popular dance in Thailand. When the dancing was over we lit a Thai lantern which was a huge cylinder made of paper type material with a wick underneath. You light it, the cylinder fills with hot air and rises up into the sky .We had fireworks attached underneath so as it rose the fireworks went off, it was beautiful to watch!

Friday morning was an early start with us getting up at 7am to offer alms (food) to the monks. This is done daily by the locals and HAS to be done - the monks dont make themselves breakfast! After a godo breakfast we went on a bike ride through the surrounding villages and countryside. The scenery was lovely and it was ncie to be out in completely unpolluted fresh air cycling through the rice paddies. We stopped and visited a mushroom farm and picked some lunch, i cant stand mushrooms but it was really interesting to see their way of farming - its so different! We also stopped at a village house where they make traditional clothing and bags to pick up some souvenirs.... No i restrained myself this time although Tom picked up some things!!

We retiurned to the house for lunch before travelling the 40 minutes to Chaing Mai. There was time for a shower and a small rest before we caught taxis up to the hilltop temple of Doi Suthep. The view out over Chaing Mai was amazing from so hight up! We stayed and listened to the Monks chanting which was cool but slightly eerie before returning to our hotel in time to do some serious shopping in the night bazzar! The entire street wasa packed with stalls and both tom and i spent hours (and lots of money!) wandering around the stalls and doing a LOT of haggling. At about 12pm, after a subway, we decided to call it a night and head back to the hotel. It was then that we realised that we hadnt even gone to the night bazzar, it was a separate shopping centre-looking thing on the side of the road! We had just spent hours in the street stalls without even getting to the bazzar!! Ahh well, we return to Chaing Mai in about 14 days at the end of our next trip... night bazzar watch out!!

Next day we got the overnight train back to Bangkok, again this was a lovely bumpy ride with very little sleep gained!

helllooo!! well a lot has happened in the few days since i last updated you all...

Monday was spent travelling in a combination of minibuses and then a public bus that seemed to be made entirely of shiny tin. This had no air conditioning and was PACKED! Our tour leader told us that the journey was supposed to be 2 hours but it turned out to in fact be a 5 hour journey, NOT the most comfortable experience!! Due to the time that we arrived in Nakhon Si Thamarat all we did this evening was eat and sleep.

On Tuesday we got up early and went to Wat Phra Mahathat the biggest wat (buddhist temple) in southern Thailand which was really cool - there was so so much gold everywhere and loads of Buddha statues! We met some monk chioldren who were there on a trip and had some photos taken before leaving to get a bus and ferry to koh Samui. We arrived in Koh Samui at about 4pm and went straight to the sea!! It is such a beautiful place - a real paradise island as im sure you will have seen from the photos!

Wednesday was a day trip to some of the nearby islands where we went snorkelling in the marine park, lazed on the beach and went to see the emerald lake. The snorkelling was AMAZING, the gides gave us bread to take in with us so the fish were eatign out of our hands and there were hundreds of them!! We were completely surrounded by fish that were swimming on toip of each other, all we could see was fish! We had lunch on the beachof a random island before going to another small island to visit the emerald lake. This is a saltwater lake supplied only by an underground tunnel frrm the sea and is THE most amazing green colour. It was quite a trek to get to it though, loads and loads of really steep steps up over ths hills and then back down to the lake - it was worth it though! That evening we went into Chaweng (the main place in Koh Samui) and went to a ladyboy cabaret show which was fantastic!! Once you got over the initial shock it truly was a great show - the costumes were really cool! Obviously there were lots of very very very strange looking people there but most you could not tell that they weren't 'real' women - much to the worry of the guys in our group!! We had such a great night, it was such a laugh and something i would really recommend doing!!

On Thursday Tom and I along with the other couple (nick and Trish) ventured to Chaweng - the main beach and shopping area on Koh Samui. This is the tourist area and the whole essence of Koh Samui and being in paradise was spoiled by evertyhing being exectly as it is in spain - i truly could have been on Calpe beach!! I much preferred our beach which was beautiful and quiet and hardly touristy at all. I had a wonderful Thai massage next to the pool - i have NEVER been stretched in so many different ways, it was really bizarre!!

Friday was our day of leaving :-( We caught the ferry back to the mainland before getting a bus for 1 1/2 hours to the train station where we caught the overnight train to Bangkok. This was a really really long journey - 12 hours on the train!! I was much much better than we expected - we had been told to expect cramped, hot and noisy conditions however we found ourselves in a carriage with really big spacious seats, roomy bunk beds and so airconditioned it was cold (i had to put a jumper on!) Also pretty much the entire carriage was asleep in their bunks at 8pm so not noisy at all!! Despite this none of us slept well at all due to the fact that the train bumped along the tracks so much we thought it was about to/had already derailed!!

Saturday was spent mainly sleeping and recovering from the lack of sleep from the night before then some shopping on Kohsan Road!!