Chiang Mai

Having finished all I needed to do in Bangkok (including getting two fillings without anesthetic but for only $50), I was ready to move on from the money draining city and head north to Chiang Mai. The overnight bus was the cheapest option but it was also very cramped, cold, and had two annoying English piss heads on board. Sleep was not possible.
Once in Chiang Mai I headed out with Ciaran and two Polish girls we had met on the bus to book a hill-tribe trek for the next day. Having done this, we had a chilled out afternoon catching up on some sleep before Ciaran and I headed out for a few drinks. Bumping into a mate from my home town, a few drinks turned into a few more and leaving him to go home me and Ciaran headed to several more bars for a night that ended up being way too big for a prequel to three days trekking. We awoke the next morning feeling REALLY hungover but soldiered on and visited a butterfly garden on the way to the beginning of our trek. Normally, I would say that the trek would have been easy, but in the state I was in it was pretty tough. Beautiful scenery and villages though, and by late afternoon I was feeling good enough to take the locals on in a game of Takro.
The next day we headed off to the Elephant camp for some elephant back riding and then walked to another village where we could swin in the local river that flowed from a natural spring. It was a slow and relaxing day. In the morning we walked to visit a waterfall that was not incredibly impressive but was over 6ft deep at the base and was good for swimming. From here we headed to do some whitewater rafting that had pretty low level rapids but was good fun nonetheless. this was followed up with some bamboo rafting and our time in the hills was then over. Tonight I head to Laos so posting may be less frequent for the next month or so....