Well what can I say... this place is amazing (at this time of year), Songkran, is without a doubt, the most friendly and pleasant festival ever -... I'm absoloutely soaked from head to foot and just sat my big black 45 baht bucket-with-string next to me in the internet cafe - brilliant, I cant really describe the atmosphere here, but I wish we had anywhere near as much fun and energy on a public holiday at home.

At any rate, lets cover what I've been up to... My trek for 3 days was really fun - my first night in Chiang Mai I met 2 of my fellow trekers, A girl from Finland (Anna) and a guy from England (Paul) - Paul is great, a very very interesting fellow who in his 30 years has a great deal of life experiences to share, not all of them pleasant, but all the more interesting... Anna has a wonderful command of the english language, and has studied psychology and is a transient..and vid people watcher (like myself) - so we get on quite well, we even got up to a bit of drunken urban exploration as we wandered home last night.

First night of the trek we headed out and stayed a night with a Karren (sp?) hill tribe - they dont speak standard Thai in these regions, and as part of the "eco" tourism push they have been oddly converted (no feed lines, but the tribes have solar panels, T.V. aerials and catholic churches - catholicism in Thailand is very interesting, I still haven't quite got the "measure" of it, as they still celebrate budhist events such as Songkran and generally are a little.. umm.. Odd.  Missionaries have a bit of answer for ;o)

Second night we headed to a little village that had a waterfall, very scenic... just kicking back and having a few drinks with our trainee guide, Mr Bad Boy.. who's birthday apparently it was, but wether it was true we're not quite sure.  Mr Ken (our main guide), was hungover (among other things... hehe) from the night before and let us be.

The last day we went bamboo rafting (and it was the first proper day of Songkran) so we got very wet.. and then went for a half hour ride on elephants at the elephant camp, which was definitely an experience.. riding on an elephant is really quite something, especially when they start scrambling up an eighty degree incline..

My Trek was great, but the variety and amusement derived from the people I met on the trek was even better - the social dynamics are hilarious (the group consisted of a bunch of british girls ranging from 18 through 22 and one english lad (Tom) who had been teaching english in Thailand for the last 3 months, 2 Australians (both pretty cool), Paul, Anna and Myself being the solo travellers.  I can't really be bother putting it down into words right now, but it's been a lot of fun, and the food was great.

Today I had a lazy start, as we went out to the riverside bar and grill for drinks and food last night and I was felling a little run down (Honey coated pork spare ribs with spicey papaya salad with prawns and a 2 litre pitcher of chang beer, so good!) - so I had breakfast at 10:30 then read a book till 12 (Trigger by Arthur.C.Clarke, which isn't a bad load of bollix) - and went wandering with Paul.

Since then I've just been getting sprayed with water by kids and old people alike (it's good luck to wet westerners :) almost continually... there are people everywhere, and they're all smiling... it's just amazing - you really have to be here to understand, but you're very greatful for your Typhoid shot!!  Everything is covered in the local water out of the ping river and surrounding areas, deli belly central I'm sure...

Tonight I'm meeting up for drinks with the Trek'ing gang again at 8pm, which should be fun - I have the advantage of not really having plans till after Songkran, so I can have a bit of a fun without worrying about needing to move again the next day.

Once Songkran is over I'll book a thai cooking class for a couple of days and arrange my slow boat to Luang Prabang in Laos (I've already got my Visa being processed now) - and I take back what I said about Chiang Mai weather, it's miles better then Bangkok because the nights are a lovely 20 degrees.. just dont get out of bed till lunch time and you have a 5 hours heat and then the temperature eases off, I actually wore a pair of jeans last night comfortably.. first time in Thailand.

Hope everyones doing swell, whats the weather back home like :?

 - Alex