Wow, last night was mental! The thunder storm lasted through to the
early hours, the sky was lit up with lighning and loudest cracks of
thunder I have ever heard, it was like a bomb going off.

We woke about half 7 and blearily made our way outside where we had
yet more rice and veg to eat for breakfast, thankfully there was toast
and jam so that went down well.

We set out about 9.30 and none of us wanted to walk another step,
regardless we had to (unless we fancied staying on the mountain).
We walked for half an hour and fortunately it was slightly easier
(still harder than anything I've ever done before, but easier none the
less).
Our first stop was at the elephant camp, these beasts are crazy big,
we got on to the little seat they put on top and started riding
around, it quickly turned out that our elephant, Misuzu, was going to
be particularly mischievous and fancied going for a meal, we went a
bit off course and after a light snack (a few trees!) we met back with
the others, the driver (what do you call an elephant driver) let us
get out of the seat and sit on the elephants shoulders with our legs
behind its ears as it walked along, it was pretty fun, they're a
really odd texture and have long prickly hairs, there's a bit behind
their ears that is really soft too - random.

Next up was a few more hours of walking through the jungle, our guide
Noom almost caught us a snake! At some points we were walking along
these little mud walkways about 8 inches wide next to a very big drop
down the mountain.

You can not understand the relief we all felt when we came in sight of
the river and waterfall we were stopping at next, we hopped over 2
small logs over the river and stripped off before jumping in from the
top of the water fall, it's only about 4 or 5 metres but it looks a
lot higher when you have to jump from it. We managed to persuade
Rachel to jump too, check out her blog for a video.
It was the best feeling ever to plunge in to that river, cool down and
wash all the jungle crap off.

After a little waterfall shower and a swim we had yet more trekking,
yay, here the group seperated as 2 of the guys were doing a slightly
different itinerary.
We continued on until we got to a small farm in the middle of nowhere
yet it still had running water, electricity and satellite tv! crazy,
there were 2 tiny little puppies crawling around playing with baby
chicks, it was surreal.
I was completely screwed by this point, did not want to go 1 step
further and felt pretty sick, I think the lack if sleep and no meat
made me feel pretty bad. Luckily this is where our truck was picking
is up.
We drove for about 40 minutes and arrived at our next activity, white
water rafting.

The river we were going down was quite small but the rapids were fun,
if a little slow, we got stuck a few times and it was pretty good to
have all that water to cool down in, after the rapids we jumped onto a
bamboo raft that took us further down the river for 15 minutes into
some civilisation.

As we were going down the river it was so cool, there were monks and
children playing in the water and we had a little water fight with the
kids. Everyone is alway so happy here, it's amazing. We passed under a
few guys building a bamboo bridge over the river, fascinating stuff.

This was the end of our little trip and we arrived back at the hostel
an hour or 2 later, sooo tired buy we could not go to bed, it was the
hostel owners birthday so we all went out for a meal n had some drinks
(from a bucket).

So that's about it. Laters peeps.

We got up early this morning thinking we were infor a gentle trek and
some nice scenery, never expecting to have such a crazy day.

We got picked up at 9 by our guide Noom, he was born on the mountain
we were about to climb. We picked up a few other guys from their
hostels, a nice couple from Switzerland and 2 Canadian firefighters,
we headed to our first stop, a butterfly farm, that was pretty lame,
we then moved on to a local market where they were serving loads of
cooked bugs and odd offcuts of pig trachea, intestines etc. Rach and I
took the safe option and just got some Oreos. Ha!

After a short drive we arrived at 1st base, we started walking and
after about 5 minutes were faced with a mountain, the only way was
straight up, the guides cut us some bamboo walking poles and it got
hotter and hotter and tougher and tougher as the day progressed.

We eventually made it to our first stop after 2 hours of gruelling
heat and extremely tough terrain, Rachel had to be helped out quite a
lot but we were here, a bat cave, unfortunately batman and robin were
out but we did see a few of the little critters hanging around.

The guides had been collecting plants all day for our dinner and after
another 2 hours or so of trekking we got to the village where we would
be spending the night. I tell you it was such a relief, mylegs were
about to give way and we desperately needed more water.

We're staying in a little bamboo hut with about 10 beds side by side
on the floor (very cosy). The first thing we wanted was a nice shower
and what we found was interesting to say the least, imagine an open
bamboo hut with the worst toilet you've ever seen, now imagine a pipe
up the wall next to it with a tap that shoots out cold water. The
shower was brief but refreshing, we would have washed in anything
right then.

After a short relax and a cool beer dinner was served, we all sat
around a huge table, the food was amezin and there was enough to feed
us 4 times over.

After dinner the guides and there friends from the village joined us
for drinks (one villager got very drunk and was singing to Rachel ..
"Baby i loooooove yooouuuu" it was so funny. A few of them played
guitar whilst teaching us some puzzle games with matchsticks.

Then the thunder storm came, all of a sudden we had a tropical
downpore and wind that could blow you over, our clothes and towels we
had out to dry scattered everywhere and even the locals said they'd
never seen it like this! So now we are tucked up in our beds looking
forward to tomorrow when we should be elephant riding, White water
rafting and jumping off of waterfalls before returning to the hostel

Night!