Well the second night on Khao San proved to be just as fruitful as the one before! We met up with Iona and Katie and as it was their last night we thought we best give them a send off in style! Therefore we hit a few bars and ended up in a roof top bar with live music.. even persuading the Thai live band to sing happy birthday to Katie as it was fitting for the occasion. After partying on down in Gullivers we headed back to the hotel but stopped by the internet cafe for some reason where we spent about 30p on 30 minutes entertainment.. not quite a ping pong show I must say.

The next day we knew that we had to check out by 12pm at the latest unless we wanted to pay an extra 400 baht. In preparation for this we had set our alarms for about 10am giving us plenty of time to get our stuff together and check out. Unfortunately when we finally woke up we had several messages from Iona saying she had been knocking on our door and there was no response. It was 12.05pm when we woke in fact and the hotel were pestering us to get out of the place which we intended on doing as fast as possible. So.. at 12.35pm we checked out and organised to meet Iona and Katie at MBK before we ventured north and they ventured home.

Not really knowing how to get north we stopped off in the nearest travel agents and proceeded to book a bus to Chiang Mai which was to take 10 hours at a mere cost of 650 baht. The bus was set to leave at around 6pm giving us plenty of time to enjoy another one of those mad moped races across town. 100 baht later and we were at MBK and planned to meet up with the girls in several locations before actually managing to track them down. An hour or so passed and a trip to Dunkin Donuts later and we were set to leave. The traffic had increased substantially by this time and so a moped seemed our only option. So agreeing a 500 baht fee for 4 of us we raced back to Khao San for a last farewell.

Upon arriving we did a bit of last minute shopping and haggling and we all managed to get ourselves into the Thai Education System by featuring on Thai University TV. We had to say a few words in Thai but for the most were interviewed in English by a rather over enthusiastic presenter. When asked, ''Is this your first time on Khao San?'' We replied, ''Yes! We're Thai Virgins!''... not sure how that is going to be recieved back at the university. It was then time to head back and collect our bags saying our goodbyes to Iona and Katie before they jetted off back to Heathrow! It was our turn to get on the bus in order to head north where we intended on then venturing across the border to Laos to do some tubing!

The bus pulled up and 10 minutes later we were in our leather reclining seats and ready to go. The journey seemed long but Jack and I were pretty tired and so intended on getting some sleep which we hoped would take up a fare share of the trip. 1 hour in and we both decided to try and get some sleep. On the verge of falling into a deep sleep I was awoken by a rather vocal Thai man that sat on the chair opposite. For the next 45 minutes I watched the road as everyone around me was sleeping.. and then... BAD NEWS! Laos was flooded and there was 400 mm of rain minimum predicted for the following 5 days. Suddenly tubing didn't sound so fun!

Jack awoke a few minutes later and when I delivered the message we both considered the fact that we were about to waste the next 10 hours of our life going to a place that we didn't really want to go. As there was little we could do about it we allowed the journey to continue and after about 5 hours we stopped at a Thai Service Station.. not quite the Moto's we are used to in the UK. This was a open barn with a few stalls, a small shop and some rather interesting toilets. We were to be allowed 40 minutes in this interesting place in which time we bought a bottle of the Thai Red Bull (M-150) and I purchased two cans of fanta that pretty much caused me to play BrickBreaker on my phone for the next two hours! NOT COOL! After the two hours I attempted to sleep again.. but the vocal Thai Man was not going to let that happen. He was persistent in making his rather weird and wonderful noises!

50km to Chiang Mai and 11 hours in we began to see the true beauty of the untouched north. With every intention of stepping off the bus and getting straight on a plane to Ko Samui we did not really have high hopes. However upon arriving at our drop off point a number of taxis picked us up and provided free transport to our hotel that we were to stay in. As Jack and I were extremely tired and were in desperate need of a shower we accepted the invitation and head to the Thana Hotel.. a mistake! When we arrived we inspected a room which at first glance was very nice and we were both on the verge of saying..''We'll take it'' UNTIL a lizard decided to show up and run across the wall, at which point we picked up our bags and headed out of there. Completely lost we stumbled upon two backpackers who were heading to a hostel called Julies that apparently was better than The Thana! We arrived at Julies and then had to wait until 8am (7.15am currently) to try and get a room.

During this time we contemplated going to the airport and getting a flight out of here as the mosquito concentration in the toilets did not compliment the hostel in any way. Finally 8am came and there was 'unfortunately' no rooms to be rented which brought a small smile to both our faces! We then hopped in a tuk tuk and headed to the bigger hotels in town. 50 baht later and we were there; the hotel proved to be 2000 baht a night, which was just outside our price bracket so once again we flagged down a tuk tuk driver and asked him to take us somewhere else. He took us to the CM Bazaar which was 750 baht a night but has TV, En Suite, Mini Bar and no bloody lizards crawling over the walls. We promptly took the room and then proceeded to sleep from 9am until 6pm catching up on some much needed rest. When we awoke I had a text from Martin (a person we had met in Bangkok who was in Chiang Mai) who invited us to go and have something to eat with them. We quickly showered and headed out meeting up with him and his friend as well as two american travellers. After eating and playing some good old drinking games we headed to see some Thai Boxing. After paying a small fee to get in we sat down and watched some pretty brutal boxing, which was then followed by some Cock Fighting! However for our friend Gareth this was not enough. He proceeded to pay 300 baht to actually step in the ring with a Thai Boxer. Of course they took his money and accepted which prompted him to strip to his boxers and step into the ring. Of course he did not come off well against the professional but it was a great laugh.

In search of another drink we then hopped in another tuk tuk who promised to take us to this roof top bar. Instead he took us to a brothel that was not too inviting. We jumped straight back in the tuk tuk and parted ways promising to meet up tomorrow. The tuk tuk driver then took around 30 minutes to find our hotel taking us to three seperate locations first! Alas we arrived home and are now preparing ourselves for some jungle trekking tomorrow! After our initial bad start in Chiang Mai things have turned out for the best and we now intend on staying here until Monday when we want to fly down south for some SUN!