Boring day, today.

I've spent most of today getting sorted for Thailand tomorrow. Getting clothes washed, changing my Malaysian Ringget for Thai Baht and researching all sorts of stuff about the next month in mainland south east Asia. And from this research, I've come to the worrying conclusion that I may not have enough time to do everything I'd planned. With only three weeks left after the elephant thing, I still have Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and southern Thailand to compete with. I seriously doubt I'll get all that done, so I'll have to make some priorities.

Initial, very flexible and highly-susceptible-to-change plans are as follows:

After washing elephants for a week, I'll hang around in Chiang Mai for two days or so - no doubt I'll be in desperate need of a shower and somewhere to get my clothes washed - and then I'll be off to the border town of Chiang Khong (no idea as yet how I'll be getting there), where I'll cross the border into Laos and into the town of Huay Xai. From there, it's a slow boat down the Mekong River (looking forward to that) to Luang Prabang, which takes two days with one overnight stop, apparently. Luang Prabang sounds nice, so I'll be there for a day or two, before flying (yes I know... but you try finding a route into Vietnam from there that takes less than a day!) to Hanoi. In Hanoi I'll find Jerry's place and (if he'll let me) use that as a base for exploring northern Vietnam and in particular Ha Long Bay, where that favourite Top Gear episode of mine finished.

That, so far, is the extent to which I've thought this through and that will allow me maybe a week and a half, if that, to get back to Bangkok for my flight to New York. Hopefully I'll be able to squeeze Angkor Wat (Cambodia) into that time, but I'm not counting on it. All I know for sure, is that one day, I'll be back here with a fair bit more time on my hands, because rushing like this is far too stressful and expensive for my liking.

I fly to Bangkok tomorrow morning, via Kuala Lumpur. Penang -> KL at 8am local time, and then a few hours later (can't remember the exact time) KL to Bangkok, arriving at 13.35 Thai time. If I get the train I'm hoping to get, I'll leave Bangkok at 6pm and arrive in Chiang Mai soon before 8am the next morning. Elephant volunteering starts at 8am the following day. Should be a good week :)

I realise that most of what I've said (place names in particular) will mean absolutely nothing to most of you, but it was useful for me to get that written down and so at the expense of your time, I now have a much better idea of what's going to be happening to me for the next few weeks. Thanks very much!