Here we are in chiang khong on the thailand-laos border, sitting beside the Mekong river (very idyllic). Tomorrow morning we cross into the Lao People's not very Democratic Republic but, before we do that, just a short (yeah, right) mail to let you know what we've been up to since the last time Annabel wrote... We left xi'an (seems like months ago now) and got the train to beijing.

The train to beijing was good, much better than the one we got previously. We had no real trouble finding a hostel in Beijing, though we had some trouble believing we were still in china.

Taking a moment for trivia, The Bible (dubbed The Lonely Liar or The Lonely B*stard by various people we’ve met) says that metropolitan beijing is bigger than belgium. I didn’t know that but I can believe it. Anyway, it's hard to put into words - i've just deleted 2 attempts - but beijing is bigger, smarter, more international, cleaner, newer, less abrasive than all of the china that we had seen before it (except hong kong which, in my view at least, is currently only chinese by name, though maybe not for long...).

We spent 5 days in beijing in all and we saw 3 of the main sights within the city - the temple of heaven, the summer palace and the forbidden city. All were impressive in their own way with architecture based on them being the residences of the emperor. The forbidden city is probably the most well known and impressive, and it's hard to believe that until relatively recently the locals weren't allowed in there at all. The summer palace is also impressive and, similarly, was closed to locals until not that long ago. The temple of heaven was similar and probably less of a must-see than the other 2.

The highlight for me was the wall. We traveled to a place called jinshanling to find the now expected local tourist infrastructure – effortless way to get to the scenic spots (cable car up the hill) and areas set up for cheesy photo opps. After some confusion – our driver from the hostel gave us only vague directions - we set off on the 9km walk along the wall to the next town.

With the exception of about 200m at either end, which has been rebuilt for the local tourist market, the wall is in its original condition – which is now various degrees of disrepair - for most of the way along. This doesn’t detract from its impressiveness, though, and it really is a stunning thing to see, and in many ways better that most of it has been left in its original condition. If we’re lucky we have some great photos of the wall stretching off into the distance, over the tops of the hills and through open and largely deserted countryside. The fact that the ancient chinese managed to build this is truly remarkable, though from what we have read many people died in the effort as it was built with forced labour by a variety of emperors. When we got to the end, at simatai, we were able to take a zip line down to the car park, which was excellent fun and a great way to round the day off!!

We also saw tiananmen square, which was ok though not very interesting or enjoyable unless (a) you are a big fan of chairman mao – his mausoleum is there (b) you like crowds (c) you can forget what happened to a large number of students there in 1989.

On our last night we went to the nightmarket and, plucking up all of our courage, tried some of the unusual food. Those of you who know me well will know that I am not a great adventurer on the food front- annabel is much better - and so this was a big leap for me. We tried barbecued snake, barbecued whole squid and frog’s legs, among other things. All of them were very chewy, though only the frogs legs tasted of anything and that was mostly garlic. We still didn’t have the courage for the grasshoppers, fat cotton bugs or scorpions, but we’re building up to that and we’ll definitely have more chances to try.

The train back to hong kong took 27 or so hours, but was ok despite the man in the bunk opposite mine who slept for almost the whole journey and snored loudly for most of it too. When we got to hong kong we rushed around to the post office – to send stuff home – and to the cathay pacific office - to change our flights – and, to our surprise, were able to do both and leave for bangkok the next morning. We celebrated in Starbucks.

A few people had pointed us toward the khaosan road area of bangkok and so, on landing, we headed straight there. We checked into a dingy hostel – after we had both seen a rat run across the reception area – and went walk-about to check the place out. First, and as usual, we had chosen the dodgiest hostel around (we have a knack for doing this) and decided to change asap.

Nothing had prepared us for the backpacker mecca that is khaosan road. In 4 months of travelling we had never seen the like of it anywhere – everywhere we looked we saw white faces, backpacks, dreadlocks, bars full of people like us drinking, tourist cafes and the whole place was, in its own way, buzzing. The funniest thing was the very large number of people with an “I’m too cool to even begin to look interested in anything” look. Again, we hadn’t seen anything like it. People who looked like they had been on the road for a while suddenly looked worried about their appearances again (including my dear wife, insecure gal that she can be). Every local hair stylist was full of tourists getting a trim, the Bangkok chic traveler look was de rigueur - one-size fits all cotton pants, flowing cotton top & fake Birkenstocks, in the local Boots (yes there is one) hair wax was sold out as desperate people scrabbled for the boots own to create their own funky look. Very funny overall, but at the same we found everything we wanted, it was cheap, easy and we decided to relax there for a few days (we had to wait 3 days for our laos visa anyway). Our room fed the aircon habit if nothing else.

While in Bangkok we almost literally did nothing (surprisingly driven by my wife), but on the 3rd day we mustered the will to brave the heat and humidity and go look at the wat phra kaew (temple of the emerald buddha) and the grand palace. The temple was over-run with tourists, but very impressive. The grand palace, also over-run, was also impressive and it was great to find somewhere where even the major tourist attractions charge reasonable prices for their drinks.

From bangkok we headed north east to a small town called pak chong as we wanted to see the Khao Yai national park. After a shorter than expected (and that never happens) bus ride of 2.5 hours, we got off and were ‘greeted’ by the ‘representatives’ of two different hostels. The first guy was the one we had heard about and we said we would go with him almost as soon as we got off. His ‘opponent’ was not, however, to be easily deterred and insisted on giving us the full spiel. To our surprise our host stood by patiently smiling, sometimes laughing, as she told us all about our alternative. We still went with him, but it reinforced one thing that has struck us since arriving in Thailand which is that the people are all nice to each other more or less all the time. A refreshing change.

We spent the afternoon by the pool of a deserted luxury hotel – part of our deal – and a relic from Thailand’s aborted economic boom of the late 1990’s. The next day we set off on our trek in the afternoon and after seeing kids swimming – in full school uniform - in a spring after school and a cave with a Buddhist temple in it, we set off to climb the hill to the entrance to a bat cave. No cars, bikes or boats to be seen, but after sitting outside for about 45 mins – and enduring the overwhelming smell of bat droppings – we were treated to the magical sight of around 1 million insect eating bats leaving their cave at sunset. All worth the walk up the hill and the walk back down, in the dark, which was even more hairy.

The next morning we set off early for our full day’s trekking. After a while in the jeep we got into the park and pulled over beside some monkeys, which were very cute but not very tame and most of them hid from us near the road (they’re probably safer doing this…). We also saw elephant droppings on the road (nothing else could leave a pile like that) which raised our already-too-high hopes of seeing a wild elephant later in the day. After that we donned our leech socks – very attractive – and set off for our jungle walk. In addition to being chased the whole time by leeches – annabel did not like this at all – we saw gibbons (trivia time – monkeys have tails, gibbons do not, did you know that? (Fraenzi, you probably did). We didn’t.) We also saw centipedes, various large bugs and horned spiders. How cool are horned spiders – a small, triangular shaped spider with horns about 5 cm long growing from its head. It’s not dangerous.

After stopping for lunch we had the chance to swim in a pool at the bottom of a waterfall, which was very refreshing and then we walked down to another waterfall, 70m high. After an early dinner we set off again in the jeep to see elephants and tigers. Yeah, right. I think we had all got our hopes up a little too much and, in the end, we spent 2 hours driving up and down the road (not the most likely venue for either, you wouldn’t think) and saw only deer and some kind of raccoon monkey type thing. Despite the last minute disappointment we had all enjoyed the day, and we set off back for the hostel and some much-needed sleep.

The next morning we went to the train station to start our journey to chiang mai. When we eventually got tickets we found to our surprise (a) we had paid only 50 US cents each for a 2.5 hour train ride and (b) that we were in 3rd class on a Thai train. After 20 mins or so of my wife expressing slight concern at just how bad this experience could be, the train arrived and we were all relieved to find seats in a perfectly comfortable carriage crammed with friendly locals. The most notable thing about the journey was the number of vendors working the train. People carrying baskets of cold drinks, rice meals, fruits, you name it and it was available. Again we were struck by how nice the people were to each other, even the competing vendors.

We considered stopping in Kanchanaburri, but when we got to the bus station to check out times, a bus was due so off we went again. 20 mins and some hurried food shopping later, we set off on the 10 hour ride north to chiang mai.

The bus was a local bus and we were the only tourists aboard, but it was fine and we got there about 2330. The main event of that journey was driving through some of the flooded areas along the river, where we saw some houses up to their roofs in water and children swimming in what used to be the street. Driving-by it is hard to see people with so little have so much of it taken from them but, again, we were struck by the character of the people who were just getting on with it as best they could. Funny to see how resourceful people can be – one guy had turned his canoe into a door to door taxi service! The other funny thing was seeing a Thai lady-boy get on the bus and sit in front of us. According to the guide book, chiang mai is famous for helping Michael find the Michelle within, and so you can draw your own conclusions from that. He/she smelled ok though!!

When we got to chiang mai we chose the Libra guest house – against the wishes of our tuk tuk driver who wanted to take us to a place where he would get commission – and were fortunate to find someone there to let us in.

Chiang mai is a great place to chill, which is what we then did. We had a delicious breakfast and took a leisurely walk around the hill tribe museum (which was interesting, small and gave us some info on the hill tribes we would meet later in the week). The next day we visited one of the main temples, up on the hill, and on Wednesday morning we set off on our 3 day trek through the hills north of chiang mai nd a few km from the border with Myanmar/Burma.

There were 7 people in our group, which was lucky, and our guide, his name was Git (not joking or meaning to be rude here), spoke pretty good english, was generally very helpful and quite funny with it. After driving for a couple of hours and stopping for lunch by the roadside, we set off walking through the countryside. The scenery was nice, and it wasn’t too hot, which we all appreciated.

We eventually came to a river and were surprised to see our guide’s helper stripping down to his not very clean underwear. Then we realised it was time to walk across the river to the other side, and so we removed as much clothing as modesty would allow, and followed suit. It wasn’t deep but it was pretty fast flowing and we weren’t helped by the local children laughing and swimming alongside us as we walked and struggled not to drop anything into the water. 50m from the other side we walked into a basic Lahu (hill tribe made up of refugees from Myanmar/Burma) village. Before we had walked more than 100m we had seen a half dozen children wondering around with either no clothes, or just a top that was normally 10 sizes too big and always coming apart.

We were shown to our hut and went for a look around the village. Everywhere we looked we saw pigs/piglets, chickens/chicks, dogs and a few water buffalo. We spent some time looking at the school that is being built for them, which consists of a large 1 room wooden hut which, we were told, has taken them about 2.5 years to build (apparently due to government delays, though what influence the government can have way out there is not obvious to the tourist). At the moment the young children go to a school 5km away, but they can’t go in the rainy season as the river is too high and they can’t get there. The new school should be open in January. The striking thing was that the children all looked healthy and happy. They were amazed by the digital camera and chest hair of Brent, another guy in our group, who had them in fits of giggles and laughter for over half an hour by taking pictures of them and showing them the results.

The next morning we set off on another hike to the bamboo rafting camp. This took about 3 hours, and the amazing thing was that with the exception of insects we didn’t see a single animal. It wasn’t a wild life trek, though, and so this wasn’t that much of a surprise. When we got to the bamboo rafting camp we had a quick lunch and then got onto our rafts. Each one was made of around 15 25 foot bamboo poles, lashed together with reeds and other natural bits and pieces – not a nail, rope or anything artificial in sight!! When we stood on them they sank a little and our feet were wet, and this made us a little nervous to begin with.

There was nothing to worry about, though, and the next 2 hours were great fun as we floated down the river under the excellent helmsmanship of one of the raftmakers (the one piloted by our guide, Git, was all over the place and almost cap sized about 4 times – very funny to watch). Having said that, I did fall in. Again that won’t surprise many of you, I’m sure, but I was at the back of our raft and when it went over a boulder I was tipped into the water. It was very refreshing, actually, as the day was very hot and with the exception of a small cut on my shin there was no harm done (except that I did almost sink the other raft when I got on it!) At all as I was eventually fished from the water a short distance down stream.

The next village we got to, after ‘showering’ in the river at the end of the journey, was a Lisu village (refugees from China, and more advanced than the Lahu). Similar set up to the day before - we had our own hut, spent the night listening to the cicadas and, for the 2nd day running, were unceremoniously woken by the cockerels at 4am. Nice.

Later that morning we started our elephant trek – ours was called Mabun, and it was enormous. Elephants do not give a comfortable ride, at all, but it was interesting to see them even if they weren’t wild and we had a good view from the top. 1 hour later we set off for the cave, which I skipped as I wasn’t feeling like being cooped up in a cave. Annabel enjoyed it, though, and saw spiders, stalactites and a large frog but wasn’t very happy when the batteries went in my head torch (oops). We eventually got back to the guest house at about 4pm, had showers, and went out for food and to check out the massive night market.

We had decided that we didn’t want to move on on the day after our trek, so we signed up for a Thai cookery course. Our ready-steady-cook-athon, started with an early morning trip to the market to buy ingredients (each with our own wicker basket, into which the guides helper would place the various ingredients stealthily from behind) and then headed back to the kitchen. Before lunch, we had made and eaten a thai green curry, a sweet and sour chicken and a pad thai. We were full - very full. After lunch we made a spicy fruit salad – odd, if you ask me – and then fried bananas in caramel, coconut milk and ice cream, which was much better. This was followed by making spring rolls and, to top it off, a hot and sour soup. All before 330 in the afternoon!!! We were stuffed, very stuffed, and doing anything else for the rest of the day was never going to happen. As ever, Annabel did manage to fit in a thai massage (she’s now addicted), and I managed to get a not-too-awful hair cut, all essential maintenance.

Yesterday (yes, I'm almost done…) we got up early and got the bus across to chiang kong, from where we will tomorrow cross the border to Laos. Following advice from every man and his dog we’re going to get a 2 day slow boat to the northern city of luang prabang, and see where we go from there.