So here we go I've joined the world of blogging and started off on my adventures around the globe. I've been away two weeks and after a bit of a shaky start have begun to find my rhythm and really start to enjoy the travelling. So here's a quick run down off what's been happening in over the past two weeks.

Day 1 Leave UK for Bangkok - meet nice lady on the plane going to visit her son in Oz
Day 2 Arrive Bangkok - Hotel in Sukhumvit and sleep off the jetlag
Day 3 Nearly get scammed by dodgy cab driver and visited the Grand Palace. It's beautiful and the temple of the Emerald Buddha is really serene and calm with loads of gold and a tiny yoda like green figure sitting on the top of it.
Day 4 Move to the Royal Hotel for the volunteer project. No one to meet and introduce people and turns out no one they had staying that weekend was going to the project I was working on. Hotel staff wake my at 4.45am demanding my passport 500 baht and a check in form. Hmmm.
Day 5 Go to volunteer project. Feel like I'm miscast in a teen drama as everyone is 18-21. Arrive at Lemon House and no one around. Where is everyone - surely I'm not living in the stixs by a river on my own for a week? About 8pm a group of older people arrive and I start to settle in.
Day 6 First day on the project. One of the group at my house is working on the Orphange project too - hurray! Given the choice of Digging a hole, mixing cement or painting a wall - hmmm so no áctivities with the children' then, bit hard as they're in school. I choose painting and paint murals on their playground walls.
Day 7 Today I dig the hole. My friend Jayne is amazing and can dig for England. I'm not so handy but I get stuck in. I guess if they need a hole then they need one and I can leave something practical to help them.
Day 8 More digging. The hole is to be an incineratorfor rubbish. It's a half day today though and we go to a lovelt swimming pool in the afternoon. Dinner is at a local restaurant and is spicy but delicious.
Day 9 The kids are an some sort of fun day and get curious about the hole. The boys decide they can do better and kick us out to dig themselves. Other kids are lighting fires and playing in the woods - yes there doesn't seem to be any health and safety in Thailand. One grou even made a fire bomb out of something they heated up and spit - I have no idea how - these kids are resourceful. After lunch Jayne breaks out the party balloons and the kids go wild.
We go to Tesco in the evening and buy lots of stuff for the kids.
Day 10 Last day on the project. We dig for a bit and then the kids arrive and we get out the games. Loads of fun with balloons, skipping ropes, dolls but the most fun they have is with the big hole and playing with our cameras. A leaving ceermony at the end of the day and I get a certificate. Sad to leave as the past two days have been great and really rewarding.
Later that evening I go for a walk by the river and see s Salamander on the road. A bit freaked out but the later on on the way back from the bar we aee a massive snake slither across the road and into the river. I am in a taxi so don't freak out too much but secretly glad I'm leaving the next day.
Day 11 Back to Bangkok and chcek into Hotel De Moc - a pool and cable TV hurray!! I really have to become more hardened as a traveller. The girl in Reception recommends a great travel agency and I book my trip to Laos via Chiang Mai. They arrange my visa and agree to store my luggage. I hand over my passport praying they aren't going to disapper.
Day 12 Lazy day. I chill by the pool and have an amazing Thai massage for a fiver. I meet another lone traveller in the hotel so we hit the riverside for dinner and some drinks at a local Thai bar that night.
Day 13 Transfer to Chiang Mai. Get picked up for the overnight train. In a carriage with a Irish, a Japanses guy and a Swdish guy. The Irish guy hands out the beer and we stay up talking till1am.
Thai sleeper trains are great and very comfy.
Day 14 After not much sleep arrive in Chaing Mai and at Parami Guest House - my home away from home. Go to veggie Cafe for a let lunch and the wander the bookshops. I pass a Wat which looks really beautifu; and a girl beckons me in. She says I can look around and later tells me I can join an exercise class in the garden. I give it a go (muay Tin) with a group of older ladies. There's lots of hand twirling and sequnce stepping and from the laughter behind me I think I provided the class entertainment. They invited me back tomorrow so I might go and try and master it.

I'm off to the cookery school tomorrow to expand my repertoire and then on Thursday I go to Chiang Kong on the border and on Friday over to Loas and Luang Prabang on a slow boat down the Mekong.