Sawasdee Ka,
Where to start, it's all a blur. We left Chiang Mai 3 days ago after Luke recovered. We spent a night in a rooftop bar drinking and mingling with other travellers and after a few hours sleep had to wake at 6.00am for our bus to Pai, a small town north of Chaing Mai. Pai is well worth the incredibly gruelling 3 hour trip up the winding mountain (hung over-yah). Our driver took 4 hours as he decided to make some deliveries on the way and talk on his mobile phone on the side of the road for about half an hour a quarter of the way through. When we arrived we dumped our things and hired some mopeds and rode out of town through the villages and hills to one of Pai's beautiful waterfalls. On the way we were offered opium about 10 times from the people in the villages. The scenery was so incredible I almost came off my bike. There were massive pot holes all over the road and dogs and crabs scampering across, but it was hard not to get distracted by the gorgeous views. On day 2 we spent the morning riding elephants bare back through the jungle and bathing them in the river. Our guide was picking magic mushrooms out of the elephant dung on the way and getting high. By the time we got to the water he was having some fun with us. We played a game with the elephant where she rolled over and we would all go flying off into the water. It was crazilly dangerous as I was pretty close to being squashed at one point by its belly. I hit my head on a rock coming off and have an egg on my forehead. At one point i was holding onto its ears and Luke was behind me and I just saw him go sliding down the back and off the tail like something out of the titanic. It was definitely a highlight to our week and to our guides week as well who was laughing harder than all of us. We stayed outside of town last night in these luxury huts, to recouperate, in a farming area, much more tranquil and rejuvinating. Today we are trying to catch a bus out of Pai. All the mini buses are full and we are going to try and squeeze into a local bus...our flight leaves from Chiang Mai to Bankok tomorrow, then Bankok to Tokyo, so if we don't get into this one it will effect the rest of our trip. I am sorry about the state of my writing today. I am soooo tired and barely functioning. All of my muscles ache from the elephant rodeo yesterday.
