Jungle Boogie

We last left you on the night before getting the bus to Chiang Mai. We arrived there around late afternoon and found out that we weren't going trekking the following day so we went to the Irish pub, U.N Irish pub to watch the Arsenal V Man U game and just chatting to a Scottish guy and two lads from Galway. The Guinness(for Bourkie) and the cider(Clare) was nice, a tad expensive by Thai standards but we stayed for a few or more and the Scottish guy brought us to see the local 'delights'. Since we hadn't seen Thai lady-boys in Bangkok we couldn't leave the country without seeing them!The Galway lads got fierce nervous trying to figure out which was a real lady, one of them having already falling for a prostitute in Bangkok and now they are texting! We only stayed there for one and went on to get kicked out of another bar because we wouldn't pay for drinks that we hadn't ordered. The local femme fatale had ordered them in the hope that the Irish lads would be suckered into buying them and more. After that we called it a night.

The next day we walked around the Sunday markets.It was which was full of really cool trinkets and tit-bits.We landed in an Irish restaurant called the lucky leprechaun, Bourkie was hankering for mashed potatoes and boy did he get them!The bar was owned by a man from Limerick who had an accent like Terry Wogan and was married to a local girl. Savage meal with Guinness steak and kidney pie and the best club sandwich ive ever had with fried egg!
We got ourselves to bed early in preparation for the next day's trekking.

We met our group the night before which contained Irish, Danish, English ,Canadian and French and mostly around our age which made for really good craic. First we went to the authorities to give copies of our passport just in case they had to contact a family member if we died along the way which wasn't the best start!After lunch we went elephant riding for about 40 minutes. Bourkie got to ride the elephant without the guide but the elephant kept on blowing out slimy stuff from his trunk.The elephants weren't exactly free and we felt exploited in the sense that they kept stopping for the tourists to buy the elephants bananas. The elephants knew every time we were stopping cause they would bring their trunks back in a way asking for bananas as the guides didn't feed them, well while we were there anyway. They stopped to eat some of the vegetation every now and then. This was followed by a couple of hours trekking and then to a waterfall where everyone jumped in for a swim(I didnt have the courage). Glad in a way that I didnt,you should see the photos of Bourkie in the water in a state of shock under the waterfall. Unfortunately this computer doesn't even have a USB for us to plug our camera in.Again we will try in Laos to post photos.
On we trekked to the local village where we were staying after having trekked in total 8 kilometers over rough uphill terrain.We were all sharing a room on bamboo stilts.There was a bucket of water to flush the toilet and another to shower with though nobody ventured to take a shower probably cause they couldn't figure out which bucket to use! The locals kept to themselves apart from making us dinner and breakfast. Because it was dry we were able to light a fire and we all sat around singing and drinking in the jungle over 1000 metres above sea-level.
Today we trekked for a couple of hours uphill which was harder than yesterday, stopped for lunch before going bamboo rafting.The guide reckoned that we covered 15 km today which explains why we are both so tired now!
Bamboo rafting entails balancing 4 people and a guide on 6 long bamboo shoots tied together going down river. There is nothing you can do but embrace the coldness of the water. Bourkie was sitting at the back and had to use a bamboo to steer his way to avoid rocks and trees. We bought a funny photo of us on the water, wait til you see Bourkie's face!We returned to our guesthouse a couple of hours ago and are getting ready for our next journey, a two day slow boat along the Mekong River into Luang Prabang in Laos. To be honest we are glad that there isn't much effort needed for this as it seems we have been on the go since we arrived.
Our next entry im hoping will contain photos and will be brought to you from Laos in two days.
Until then,keep it real.
Clare and Bourkie