last day in Bangkok and trip to Chaing Mai

The last time we wrote a blog was a 2nd day in, we have not been very good to all you people so here we are with some time free and somecheap interenet. We will update you on the last three weeks of our journey.

Grab yourselves a cup of tea......

We were waiting for a taxi the last time we wrote, so its been a few days as we've been so busy we have not been able to blog. On 22nd July (Wednesday) we got in what they call a Tuk Tuk, its like a 3 wheeled motorbike thing with a carriage on the back, kinda. Anyway, the tuk tuk only cost us 5 baht for the day which is like 10p. We went around to see the Buddha temples as all the Thai people are very religious and worship the buddha. The temples are beautiful and all plated with Bronze, you'll see on the pics. The bad thing about getting this Tuk Tuk for so cheap is that he took us around to the fashion shops and jewlery places because if we looked in there long enough or bought something, he got free petrol from them. So although it was cheap, it got quite annoying in the end. When we came out of the jewellery shops with no purchases the tuk tuk man got very dissapointed and a little aggresive too actually. Eventually we just said to him we are done and to take us back to the hotel.



So we got the taxi to the train station later on, pushing for time as the traffic was manic, we got on the train just before it was about to leave. It was a sleeper train which means the seats turn into beds and one rolls down from the top, which makes a bunk bed. Pretty cool and surprisingly comfy, which was good because the train was something like 11 or 12 hours long to Chiang Mai. Have a look at the pics if you havent already.



We arrived in Chiang Mai the next morning at around 9am to be greeted by a huge gang of taxi and tuk tuk drivers all wanting us to get a ride with them. They can come across as quite aggresive coz they want a sale that bad, this puts us right off. You would say "no thanks" to about 20 and they will still continue to ask. We thought we could walk but then realised we didn't actually no where we were going and ended up paying 500baht (1opound) for a private taxi to our hotel which was booked for us. The taxi was private but if we didn't want private then he drives along looking for other fares until he is full so bit of a pian in the nethers. We think that as soon as he realised where we were staying he was going to con us as the hotel was 4* he thought we had a bit of money and with us not knowing where we were going we were easily duped.

Once we has settled our stuff, got showered and changed we head off for a walk and nosey around the town. We thought we would get a cheap tuk tuk to take us round but were sadly mistaken when a few tuk tuks rejected our 10baht offer. We realised that if they are rejecting us we must be taking the mick and it must just be more expensive up north. Eventually we got one, cant remember how much we paid must have been around 45baht i think.

Again we saw temples and although they are beautiful for Vicky they just seem to end up all looking the same just in different places. After our temple seeing we spied a thai massage place and decided to have a massage. Brett loved it but Vicky found it to be really painful.

For the rest of the day we chilled out and packed our daysacks ready for the trekk.

Thailand, Bangkok

We're here!

So we will start right from the beginning then starting off with the traffic on the run way in Manchester Airport! Debree was on the floor after some poor bird got taken out by the plane in front of us - it got sucked into the engines! Great start! Haha!

We made it here safely invited by bright green yellow and pink taxis after 14 hours travelling! And after all that you could say that on the roads over here we feel a little bit worried for our lives, lol. There seem to be no rules on the road here, if you want to get into a lane you push, it doesnt matter if you hit each other you just keep going! If your in the left hand lane of the motorway and the driver infront is annoying you, you just undertake using the HARD SHOULDER!! This makes a tuk tuk drive pretty exciting haha ... James... we've seen a coach painted totally in Dragon Ball Z!!!

The hotel we're staying in is pretty dingy, but nice enough i suppose! The houses are small well shall we say not like England.

We went on a little tour last night on the local street where we are staying, Khaosan Road. The busiest in Bangkok. So as we are out we pass cooked, seasoned meal worms, cocroaches and grass hoppers.... My wonderful wannabe "Im a celeb" boyfriend decided he would try one, for the hell of it! ... pass you over for the verdict...yeah brett now typing... so I thought give it a go! So i did! A crunchy yet chewy grasshopper was devoured in seconds...not as bad as what you would think, i wasn't ever ever going to try the cockroach - not a chance! But I am proud of my grasshopper effort.

So, as we write this we are sitting waiting for the taxi man to pick us up to take us to the train station were we will head North to Chaing Mai where on Friday morning we begin our jungle trek which includes bamboo rafting, white water rafting, elephant rides, trekking and more! So, as we will be in the far away deep jungle we will not be able to blog for a few days. But keep checking and we'll keep updating.

Although we have only been here a couple of days we have plenty photos that we will attempt to upload. We will do this asap.

So love to you all
Bon voyage
xxxx