some might say i've been a little lazy in updating the blog, having left thailand all of a week ago and with three and a half week of merriment still undocumented. i say, balls to them.
i have now howeve managed to find a gap in my busy schedule to fill you in on what we've been up to.
we flew into bankgkok way back in the second week of november and made our way, like a fly makes its way to the lightbulb, to khao san road. a couple of dodgy suits later and we headed off to explore the sites. the grand palace was high up the agenda but we were constantly stopped by kind hearted locals who told us that because of a - surprisingly unnamed - buddhist festival the palace was closed, but if we wanted to head to their mate's jeweller/tailors we were more than welcome. we politely told them to bugger off and headed to the very open palace. needless to say it was pretty impessive. they really like their king here.
painful shopping aside not much else went on in bangkok and we soon headed up north to chaing mai for some trekking. we were, or maybe it should be I was, very fortunate to be put in a group including 7 irish girls who were well up for getting on "the flame" aka the lash. the miserable swedes were less entertaining.
we headed out into the hills around for three day of elephant riding, bamboo rafting and plenty of walking. our guide was a bit of a legend and even demonstrated this with a story of how he'd killed a tiger on a trek the week befoe and bbq'd it. to remove any doubt of this tall tale he even presented part of the carcass to us before inclduing some leftovers in a tasty curry on the second night.
the first night was my birthday and it wan't your average celebration. we arrived in our first hill tribe village (5* floorboards for beds included free of charge) and an impromptu game of 5 a side between foreigners an villagers began. 90 minutes later the villagers ran out lucky 20-19 winner although i'm sure they had twice as many players on average.
the evening was then spent drinking rice whisky like it was ribena whilst the locals sat in the corner smoking some seriously dubious cigarettes. the highlight for me was one of the irish lads thrashing the locals at a friendly game of snap and taunting them with cries of "where's your buddha now". it's all about building bridges.
next, onto the south...
