There's a rat in the kitchen, what am I gonna do?

Heh,

Back on the main land again. After Ko Mook (last post) we headed north again to Railay (or more specifically Tonsai beach).

Jeanette says 'hi' from Railay West

Railay is rock climbing central in Thailand so we had to give this a go. As you can see Bob Marley was drafted in to belay Jeanette.
Jeanette v the wall

We met up with Eimear O'Malley and her cousin Helen in Tonsai for a few days. We booked into some lovely!! bungalows until we found that we had some intruders(rats!!!). One of them took a liking to Jeanettes vitamin C container and ate the top clean off (unfortunately no photos). So we upped and left the next day and headed to another resort. And here we were paid another visit by the first cousins from the first accommodation. Not good. To distract ourselves from the rats we headed off on a couple of day trips to the surrounding islands. The following day we headed off on a kayaking trip to Ao Thalane to visit the mangrove forests (forests that grow on sand and feed off the salt water. It was pretty spectacular. After the mangroves it was on to Hong island.

Even with our rodent experience we all had a great time!!

After saying goodbye to the two girls it was onto Bangkok via the night train. Bangkok was a fly by visit, we got to see the grand palace, the emerald buddha, and Wat Pho - the thai massage school. Having spent only a few hours we flew onto Chang Mai.

In Chang Mai we met up with a friend of mine from home, Paddy Fahey and his girlfriend Lindsey. The following morning we joined a 2 day trek to visit the hill tribes in northern Thailand. Unfortunately Jeanette wasn't feeling the best so had to give it a miss.

The trek for me was one of the highlights of the holiday so far - its was great when you have walked for a couple of hours in the blistering heat to be able to jump in under a waterfall to cool off. Much of the trek was spend walking through rice paddy fields and watching the local people at work in the fields still using traditional methods to cultivate their crops. After a climbing to a height of about 1,500 metres, our guides asked us to join in a soccer match with some of the local villagers. It was the last thing we wanted after trekking 4 hours but turned out to be great craic. The mud pitch (with spectator stand!!!) was dug out from the side of a mountain and every time the ball went out of play 'mountain resuce' had to be called to retrieve the ball. It was great for the unfit (me!) for catching a breather.

Afterwards it was back to our lodgings to enjoy some local thai food, singing, dancing, rice whiskey and plenty of card games.

No real story to the next picture except that we had to get our picture taken with a Tuk Tuk driver so here it is. Tuk Tuk's for those who don't know are like taxi's except you get a free ticket to the Merries at the same time. Some experience!

Mr. Tuk Tuk, Me, Paddy

Off to do a thai cookery course tomorrow in Chang Mai. Looking forward to seeing Ireland playing Scotland aswell in O'Malleys Irish bar. Then its off to Lao for the next week or two. Talk soon,

Brian

PS. Jeanettes phone is working again