As some of you are aware, we have spent quite a lot of money on excess baggage fees in the first part of this journey. Whilst Fran doesn’t consider the addition of five pairs of shoes, a Babyless Big Hair and a year’s supply of cod liver oil over-packing, Stuart and the airlines think differently. Therefore, in an absolutely astounding feat that has to make you think world peace is possible, we went from 70kg spread across 4 bags to 27Kg across 3 rucksacks. Stuart’s only comment on weighing the bags was to look at Fran and say “I love you”. The reason for this need to reduce luggage, other than the obvious costs incurred, was that the next few months was going to be a lot more of a backpacking sort of vibe and we needed to be as light as possible for when we invariably got lost.

So, with more mobile luggage, we headed to a town in the Northwest part of Thailand called Chang Mai. Compared to most of the places we have been until now Thailand is loud and busy and after Australia, a bit of an assault on the senses. Cars, mopeds and tuk tuks vie for a limited piece of tarmac and similarly backpackers from all over the world cover the pedestrian areas, although sometimes its hard to distinguish between the two. What it also has is numerous temples, in fact there are over 300 Wats. We did consider staying at one of the smaller temples, working with the monks but when Fran found out she’d have to be silent, we thought we’d best just settle for a day trip. Despite the fact that there’s pretty much a temple on every corner we decided to get a tuk tuk and go up into the mountains to visit the Wat Phra That temple. This is supposedly the most impressive of all of the Buddhist temples in Chang Mai and it is certainly an incredible sight. With gold everywhere, statues of Buddha and monks in orange serenely wandering around it’s a place right out of a Year in Tibet.

Whilst the temples are reason enough to visit, we chose this region of Thailand because it gives easy access to supposedly the best rainforest areas. It was always our intention to do some trekking in these forests but with Fran’s foot still being an unknown quantity we thought we’d start with something easy as a test. Stuart’s interpretation of this was a two day hike over some low lying mountains with a group of sprightly 25 year olds !!! The group of nine was a real mix coming from Italy, France, Germany and Argentina. There was even a Geordie Lass for whom we were frequently having to interpret for…..sometimes unsuccessfully. Day 1 involved about 4/5 hours of hiking up into the hills with stops for swimming at various waterfalls. We were surprised at the reluctance of the group to swim in the brown turgid waters but I think seeing a pair of middle aged duffers jumping straight in at the first waterfall had shamed them into joining us by the third. We also visited a Lanna village and watched some traditional weaving, of course there was then an expectation that we’d buy something from them, so our children shouldn’t be surprised if the next few years’ Christmas presents have a Thai theme. Our accommodation wasn’t the Ritz, consisting as it did of a thin mat, a mosquito net and a few blankets but it was adequate. It got quite cold and by the morning Fran was wearing all the clothes she’d brought on the hike, including her second pair of socks and raincoat. The second day we hiked to an elephant reserve where we got to feed and bath with three that had been rescued from carrying out tourist all day. Despite being smaller than the African variant, they are still quite intimidating close up, especially when you are being encouraged to get nearer than self-preservation would dictate. It’s always a bit concerning when you go on tours involving animals about how well looked after they are and whether placing “Eco” before it means anything. However, we were happy that these beasts were well looked after and after saying goodbye to our fat grey friends we took a bamboo raft down the river. There were 3 of us and the guide, who steered the raft by means of a big pole. He was a bit of a grumpy individual, unlike most we met in Thailand, and Fran trying to help when he got us stuck on rocks didn’t improve his demeanor. To be honest we got the impression he was quite glad to see the back of us.