Wow, the last three weeks have flown by!!
I can't believe it's already been two months since I left Scotland.
The language course in Chiang Mai was really good, and I feel much more confident speaking to people in Thai now. I still haven't mastered the tones, so I have to be careful that I'm saying the right thing, but I think I'm getting there! On the last day of the course we had a small exam, and everyone passed with really high marks which is good - and we all got a pretty certificate!
As I mentioned in the last blog post, we went on a 2 day trek in the jungle over the second weekend in Chiang Mai, and it was absolutely phenominal!!
On the first day we got picked up at 9am and driven to a small clearing to have lunch (veggie fried rice!), and then we started the trek. After walking for about an hour we came to a huge waterfall which was beautiful. We all got changed into our swimming costumes and started exploring! It was actually quite cold at first, but after you'd been in for a few minuted it didn't feel cold at all. We got to go behind the waterfall, and a few of us - me included - decided to go underneath the waterfall to get out instead of going the easy way. It was so fun, but felt really weird! It was a bit like those waterfalls you get in some swimming pools, but much, much heavier!
Afterwards we walked for another 2 hours to what Rambo (our guide) called the village swimming pool - a big lake-type thing with a rapid slide!! It was so much fun. The slide was literally a lot of rapids, and at first Rambo said it was too dangerous for us to go down but we convinced him otherwise. This was definitely my favourite part of the trek, I've always wanted to swim in a pool like it and the rapid slide was like the one you'd see in a film and think "wow, I wish I could go somewhere like that!".
We then went on to the village that we stayed the night in and had dinner - curried potato, chicken and rice - it was delicious! I hadn't realised how long it was since I'd eaten potato! Donna, you would not survive here! :P Rambo built a campfire and we all sat round it and chatted for a bit, and played some of those "remove 2 matchsticks to create a..." games. Ther were really hard! I think we all went to bed pretty early, but the people in our cabin were kept awake by dogs coming in and out and fighting and howling and sleeping next to us all night! We had mosquito nets so they didn't sleep right next to us, but I woke up with a pretty large dog sleeping slumped against my leg. But there was also a cute little black kitten that made up for it :)
The next day, we went elephant riding, which I think was one of the scariest things I've ever done! About 5 minutes into the trek, a stray dog approached the baby elephant that was tagging along with us, and it's mother (with Hannah Jelley and Clara on it's back) went crazy and tryed to charge at it, shrieking. It's trainer tried to calm it down, but it started to back into the other elephants, and then Clem and Rosie's elephant started to join in by also going crazy. Luckily the elephant me and Caitlin were on was a bit further behind and didn't really seem to understand what was going on. The elephants eventually calmed down but it left everyone a bit shaken. Near the end of the elephant ride, we went down quite a steep hill and realised that our elephant (who we named Tusky) plods very hard. I thought I was going to fall off a number of times! All in all it was fun, but I don't think I'd do it again for a while! We then went to another waterfall pool, which was really fun. Although, me, Chess and Cameron did lose our grip on the wall trying to swim against the current and had to be rescued by a bamboo stick... Rambo is quick as lightening though!
After this, we went canoing which was insane! I was in a boat with Billie and Caitlin, and we hit nearly every tree that was hanging over the water. We found out quite quickly that large spiders like to live in trees, and when you smash in to them you get covered in very confused jumpy spiders...
Finally, we went bamboo ranfting which was loads of fun. It was good to have a guide doing all the work while you sat on a raft and watched the world go by!
It was a fantastic weekend and I have loads of photos to put up, which I will add to this post and to facebook in the next few days, I forgot to bring my card reader to Chiang Mai!
The last week of the language course has been a bit of a blur it's gone so fast, but we did go to a museum on the last day which was nice. Our tour guide was a ladyboy, and her English was flawless! It's unnerves me a but when a Thai person's English is better than mine... :P 
I can't believe it's already been two months since I left Scotland.
The language course in Chiang Mai was really good, and I feel much more confident speaking to people in Thai now. I still haven't mastered the tones, so I have to be careful that I'm saying the right thing, but I think I'm getting there! On the last day of the course we had a small exam, and everyone passed with really high marks which is good - and we all got a pretty certificate!
As I mentioned in the last blog post, we went on a 2 day trek in the jungle over the second weekend in Chiang Mai, and it was absolutely phenominal!!
On the first day we got picked up at 9am and driven to a small clearing to have lunch (veggie fried rice!), and then we started the trek. After walking for about an hour we came to a huge waterfall which was beautiful. We all got changed into our swimming costumes and started exploring! It was actually quite cold at first, but after you'd been in for a few minuted it didn't feel cold at all. We got to go behind the waterfall, and a few of us - me included - decided to go underneath the waterfall to get out instead of going the easy way. It was so fun, but felt really weird! It was a bit like those waterfalls you get in some swimming pools, but much, much heavier!Afterwards we walked for another 2 hours to what Rambo (our guide) called the village swimming pool - a big lake-type thing with a rapid slide!! It was so much fun. The slide was literally a lot of rapids, and at first Rambo said it was too dangerous for us to go down but we convinced him otherwise. This was definitely my favourite part of the trek, I've always wanted to swim in a pool like it and the rapid slide was like the one you'd see in a film and think "wow, I wish I could go somewhere like that!".
We then went on to the village that we stayed the night in and had dinner - curried potato, chicken and rice - it was delicious! I hadn't realised how long it was since I'd eaten potato! Donna, you would not survive here! :P Rambo built a campfire and we all sat round it and chatted for a bit, and played some of those "remove 2 matchsticks to create a..." games. Ther were really hard! I think we all went to bed pretty early, but the people in our cabin were kept awake by dogs coming in and out and fighting and howling and sleeping next to us all night! We had mosquito nets so they didn't sleep right next to us, but I woke up with a pretty large dog sleeping slumped against my leg. But there was also a cute little black kitten that made up for it :)
The next day, we went elephant riding, which I think was one of the scariest things I've ever done! About 5 minutes into the trek, a stray dog approached the baby elephant that was tagging along with us, and it's mother (with Hannah Jelley and Clara on it's back) went crazy and tryed to charge at it, shrieking. It's trainer tried to calm it down, but it started to back into the other elephants, and then Clem and Rosie's elephant started to join in by also going crazy. Luckily the elephant me and Caitlin were on was a bit further behind and didn't really seem to understand what was going on. The elephants eventually calmed down but it left everyone a bit shaken. Near the end of the elephant ride, we went down quite a steep hill and realised that our elephant (who we named Tusky) plods very hard. I thought I was going to fall off a number of times! All in all it was fun, but I don't think I'd do it again for a while! We then went to another waterfall pool, which was really fun. Although, me, Chess and Cameron did lose our grip on the wall trying to swim against the current and had to be rescued by a bamboo stick... Rambo is quick as lightening though!After this, we went canoing which was insane! I was in a boat with Billie and Caitlin, and we hit nearly every tree that was hanging over the water. We found out quite quickly that large spiders like to live in trees, and when you smash in to them you get covered in very confused jumpy spiders...
Finally, we went bamboo ranfting which was loads of fun. It was good to have a guide doing all the work while you sat on a raft and watched the world go by!
It was a fantastic weekend and I have loads of photos to put up, which I will add to this post and to facebook in the next few days, I forgot to bring my card reader to Chiang Mai!
The last week of the language course has been a bit of a blur it's gone so fast, but we did go to a museum on the last day which was nice. Our tour guide was a ladyboy, and her English was flawless! It's unnerves me a but when a Thai person's English is better than mine... :P
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