thailand

Now for the amazing trip to the North of thailand.I had to wait in Bangkok for a day or two for Charlotte as she was flying out the day after, the place we had found on the internet was truely amazing simple meaning we got free breakfast (weve been deprived, our main foods have been noodles and rice). whiilst waiting I met Alex a surry girl, we were talking and descovered that she is alone traveller and heading the same way, she is now travelling with us for a while (marvellous). The day after charlotte had arrived we headed straight out of the city (were coming back at the end of our travels), we had decided to put the tent to good use in khao yai national park. Khoa yai was a blast from getting there to staying there and leaving there. To get to the national park we had to get two trains through bangkok to get a taxi to the bus station, a bus to another bus station where we were meant to be picked up by another bus, it just so happens the buses dont run late at night.Hmmm now we had to find somewhere to stay (tricky very tricky) all the signs are written in thai, we had to ask many people for a hotel of somekind. Finally making it to a hotel only to find it is booked out, we were hot tierd and didnt want to walk anywhere else so we asked if we can sleep on the wooden benches in reception, the ladies at first thought we were joking but in the end they said we could and thought it was hilarious. Before we went to sleep the thai ladies brought us blankets and a pillow, and woke us up in the morning with a cup of tea bless them. Sort of refreshed and ready to continue our journey we catch our next bus, the smallest local bus full of people and pinapples, we squished on and enjoyed every minute of it even if we were falling everywhere. Finally we saw the gate, paid for our ticket in and then asked how we get to the campsite "hitch" okay. It didnt take us long to catch a ride and we were lucky enough to be picked up by a lovely family, which took us to two campsites they didnt like the look of the first one and heard there was a better one. The campsite was lovely we pitched up on the edge of a stream which was on the edge of the jungle, it was so nice just to lay in the sun listening to wild life in the jungle. On our first night in the park we went to bed relativly eairly as we were tierd from our day, all three of us and our huge bags all squished in to a tiny 2 man tent (very unconfortable). As we were dosing off i heard heavy breathing around the tent, it was an animal and a big one from what i could tell, the animal started ripping up bags out side. I woke Charlotte up and just as I did so the breathing got closer and the animal started scraping at our tent, omg its a bear were going to die (it was going through all of our heads), it was now sitting on the end of our tent eating through the pot noodles and crisps we bought (can you belive he left the banana cake). Still we were all shacking in fear of death from the bear, we divised a plan Charlotte was ready with her flip flop and mosquito spray, I had the pen knife and Alex had a lighter, we could take on the bear (really!) an hour past he was still there except this time we heard him eating grass, which made us think bears dont eat much grass especially not that much, Alex bravely stuck her head out of the tent...................it was infact a noodle eating deer. The next morning we were very tierd as you can see we didnt sleep very well, but still we got ready for our hike to the waterfall (the one on the beach) it was stunning. On the last day in the national park we hitched to a bigger waterfall, we got picked up by a motobike gang of harley davidsons, o my life it was so much fun I always wanted to do that. That night we were playing cards out side talking about how funny the night of the bear/deer was, as we said that we heard the loadest bear roar ever and it wasnt far.(we never saw it as you can tell im still alive to tell the tale) Time to head on to changmai we managed to hitch all the way to the bus station this time (excellent). we reached changmai at 4am the person that worked there said the desk isnt open but we can sleep in the hammocks on the roof for free, amazing. Chang mai is such a lovely place and I would definitely go back there for a holiday, the markets were amazing and if i had a lot of money i would have bought it all. Whilst we were in chang mai we went on a package trip in to the jungle where we got to, bath elephants, ride elephants, hike through the jungle, go to a trible village, bamboo raft, and white water raft. We met so many cool people on the trip, we are now infact travelling with two of them Cati and Courtney. (we have now officially discovered they are just as mad as me and charlotte) Before we headed in to laos we checked out Pai a little hippyfied town in the mountains, it was such a chilled out little place which i loved. Overall i have loved every part and minute of north thailand i recommend.