chang mai, trekking and possibly the weirdest experience of our lives!!

so we've happened (without our knowing) to be in asia for two festivals. The first being the flower festival which we went to see on our second day in Chang Mai.. basically it's what it says on the tin, a celebration of flowers! We went to see the parade in the morning which was really good, huge floats made out of flowers, people in costume and live music as they went down the street! In the afternoon we had booked a tour of the ancient temples around the city, we had a boat ride down the river and then a horse and carriage took us on a tour of the temples or ruins whichever way you want to put it, they had all been flooded hundreds of years ago so it is now known as the underground city. They then took us back to their house and gave us fruit (can't imagine doing that back in England!) but it was really nice sat outside on a makeshift boat/ table thing! We had med a dutch girl called Renatta so that evening we went into the night market with her.
The next day was the start of our golden triangle trek (we were slightly nervous), our guide was a man called Mr Tiger. That morning we were slightly unsure of what to expect but after a few stops at local markets and a long drive up to the Burmese border, we then got on a boat for a two and a half hour trip down the river. This was so good, we saw buffallo and a wild elephant, all on this little skinny boat! evntually we pulled up to the elephant sanctuary and the elephants were in the river which was so surreal! Rachel was a bit scared when she realised how big elephants are in real life! We had over an hour probably getting on two riding on the back of an elephant through the jungle and heading up the mountain. Mr Tiger and the mahout were singing to each other in Thai which made the whole situation even more strange! We had to get off the elephant eventually and were met by two people from the Lahu tribe (in normal clothes) and then had to walk up the mountain for half an hour)
When we got to the tribe it was a bit of a shock, little shacks made entirely of bamboo with animals running around everywhere. It was only the two of us on the trek so that made it even weirder (they didnt speak English or Thai but had their own language). We had dinner that night with the family we were staying with who were really nice, the young children thought we were really funny and kept daring each other to poke us!
The toilet was an experiance. litterally a hole in the ground, nice. oh and a diy flush, you had to be careful not to slip on the wee on the floor and fall down the hole!!
The next day we had to trek through the jungle\mountain for three hours all together. I didnt have a very good day for splinters and Rach kept falling over but it was really good (river island daps are not made for jungle treks). We stopped at a waterfall on the way which was amazing (and a relief). We had lunch wrapped in a leaf and tea in a cup made out of bamboo.
We arrived at the akha tribe at around 3ish, the older women were all wearing traditional tribal outfits. We sat with a little old lady who was showing us that she was making a bag (i think she wanted us to buy it but we didn't, although we did get an akha bracelt which she tied on our arm doing a weird chant!) That night we didn't get much sleep in our bamboo hut suspended over a drop in the mountain, we have discovered we don't like cockrels!!
Day 3 we left the tribe and took a van up to the most northern part of thailand and from there we went on to see the golden triangle and an opium museum. We then drove to the white temple which was amazing and the inside was decorated by a modern artist (it's really hard to explain what it's like). The last thing we saw on our tour was the hot springs which were so hot (don't know what we were expecting), they were actually boiling eggs in the water). It was such a good tour if not a little bizarre!!
Today we have been to the tiger sanctuary and cuddled huge tigers (oh and a lion). At one point i had to lie on the ground with my head on the tiger's stomach and it's paw on my chest (Rach flat out refused which was funny to watch her argue with thew thai people!) After we went to see the Karen long neck tribe who actually are long necked (they stretch it with gold hoops and look very odd)

And that ladies and gents is the past couple of days.. we're currently trying to sort out our accomodation in malasia. Will write again when we actually leave Thailand in a couple of days time. Tomorrow we have flight of the gibbon so i'm sure you will be hearing all about that!!