Bangkok, Thailand

We have spent four days in Bangkok so far. We spent out last few days in Laos doing some trekking in Nam Ha National Park in northern Laos. We based ourselves in the small town of Luang Nam Tha and headed out for two days to see the national park and some of the ethnic minority villagers who live in the buffer zone.

It was really hot trekking. The first day wasn't too bad - we trekked for about 5 hours. We ended up in an Akha village where we stayed for the night. It was pretty basic accommodation - we were in a traditional style hut and we had a mattress, mosquito net and blanket on the floor. The hut had a thatched roof and I was glad that it didn't rain because I could see chinks of the sky through the roof. Our guide slept in the hut with us. When we first got to the village in the afternoon we went for a swim in the river. After that we had to shower under the tap in the middle of the village - quite an experience.

One of the ladies from the village cooked our dinner which was really nice. Throughout the whole trek we had so much sticky rice! But I didn't mine - I have developed quite a love for sticky rice which is ubiquitous all through Laos. At night some of the pot-bellied pigs from the village came to sleep in this dusty patch under our hut. There was one big one and four little ones and they were all squashed up in a line together, head to tail, head to tail. It was pretty cute - we could hear them grunting during the night.

The second day we headed through another few villages and then up through the national park on the way back to Luang Nam Tha. Unfortunately for Paul we didn't spot any tigers. Actually, although the national park is supposed to be full of animals we didn't see anything except birds. That probably isn't so surprising considering the amount of noise we were making and the fact that the villagers eat anything that wanders into the buffer zone.

Luang Nam Tha is quite well known for its ecotourism into the national park. We picked a trekking program with the national park office and it was very good. You can see how all the money is spent. Part of it goes to the guide and the tuk-tuk driver, the majority of the rest goes to the villages that we passed through, the local guides who guided us part of the way on both days, the people who cook and carry our food and the village where we spent the night.

After Luang Nam Tha we headed to Huay Xai where we crossed the Mekong into Thailand, having picked up our Thai visa (for free - yay!) in Vientiane. We took a mini bus from the Thai side of the border to Chiang Mai where we spent a few days. It seemed like we spent most of our time in Chiang Mai shopping - there's a market for almost every day of the week. The Saturday and Sunday markets were my favourites - they were huge and stretched out for kilometres through the old city.

Being on a budget, we hired bikes one day and biked out to the museum. It was quite an adventure navigating the old city's one way streets on the bike and then heading out on the "superhighway" to get to the museum. It was so hot that day we were disappointed that the museum didn't have air con. To make up for it we stopped in a shopping centre on the way back to town to cool down.

Bangkok is ok but it is quite expensive, hot and huge! Because of our budget we have to take the bus everywhere and it is quite confusing! The other day it took us three hours to get to the Chinese embassy only to find out that it only processes visa applications in the morning! Aaaargh! Oh well, that's travelling I guess....