Monday 31st January 2011: Bangkok, Thailand

We spent an amazing weekend on our jungle trek with a group of 10 people plus our guide Johnnie Walker. Firstly we visited a market where we purchased supplies of Thai whiskey and sampled some deep fried maggots, which was much nicer than the blended/fried frog we had in Pattaya. We didn’t have the courage to eat the cockroaches though, I mean you have to draw a line…

On our first day we visited an elephant farm where we got to feed the elephants then rode on them, which was a bit like a ride at Alton Towers with platforms to get on and of the elephants! After lunch we started our trek walking up into the mountains for around 3 hours at a frantic pace being led by the two German iron men in our group. We spent the night in one of the hill-tribe villages in a bamboo hut overlooking a deep valley with forested mountains as the backdrop. The bamboo huts came with a mini bar and a village woman selling various wares, including Burmese cigars - which Martin sampled of course. We watched the local children perform a traditional song and dance for us and were then encouraged to perform back. Helen duly led our international group through renditions of ‘If You’re Happy And You Know It’ and ‘Old Macdonald’ complete with actions and dancing - brilliant!

Day two involved more walking and we both abandoned our Converse trainers due to blisters and risked trekking in flip-flops. We visited two waterfalls during the day - taking lunch at the first. We spent the second night in another bamboo hut in the forest by a river, playing group drinking games into the night and finishing all the beer supplies in the camp!

With slightly fuzzy heads on day three we completed the trek with a short walk, before we took to the river and white water rafted down the river, before changing to bamboo rafts for the final gentle part of the river. When we returned to Chiang Mai we spent the few ours before our night bus exploring the Sunday Night Bazaar, which closed down most of Chiang Mai’s traffic and the streets become full of traders. Our next stop is the southern island Ko Tao and learning to dive!