Trekking and making new friends (oh, and football!)

We had a day to let our backsides recover from the mountain biking and went off on a three days' trek in the hills about 75 kms away from Chiang Mai on Sunday.

We had such a great time! Firstly, the group of people we were with were all really nice, and it was good to meet and talk with other people. There were travellers from England (John the Jordy!), Australia, Canada, Germany and Switzerland. Gary spent a lot of time speaking French with our new Swiss friends Erika, Nathalie and Marc (Bea & Mark, if you are reading this: Nathalie and Marc live in Rolle, and Erika in Nyons. Small world, eh!).

The walking was mostly through a jungley forest, sometimes the slope was steep but the advantage of being with a group was that we were taking regular breaks etc. We spent both nights in communal/dormitory type bamboo houses, and the spirit was really that of a summer camp (les jolies colonies de vacanceuuh...). On the last afternoon, we went "white water" rafting (I put this in inverted commas because it is the dry season, so the water isn't exactly gushing down violently! But for a first timer, the rapids were fast enough to make it really fun). When the water became literally too thin on the ground, we switched to a bamboo raft and ended up jumping in the water fully clothed and having a refreshing swim.

Here's a new scary thing we met along the way... I had never seen so many scary animals/insects before this trip! Apparently this was a real tarentula, and a venemous one at that!We said goodbye to our Swiss friends yesterday (by the way, check out their blog, it's really, really good! I put a link on the right-hand side, in the "Blogs we love" section) and took a bus up to Chiang Rai, where we are spending a day before making our way up to Laos in the two days slow boat trip on the Mekong river. We spent the whole of lunchtime drawing up an itinerary which we may now have to follow like clockwork if we want to visit Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia and be in the Philippines before the Easter rush.

I am listening to the French radio as I write this and have just heard that the Rodez football team beat Paris Saint Germain yesterday! I am no football fan but feeling very happy for all my family down in Rodez, especially my cousin Jocelyn who is passionate about football and played for Rodez for a while. Christian, you have to tell us all about the atmosphere down in Aveyron when you get the chance!

I will try to add more pics etc. to liven up the blog (I am embarrassed now I have seen how nice Nathalie and Marc's is!) as soon as I find a decent Internet connection... watch this space :)

C x