On the ninth day we woke up and took our last ice cold shower and then we went to see a waterfall in between the mountains and some of us climbed over the railing and went to sit with our feet in the water and it’s like we started something because then so many tourists started doing it. Beto made me laugh as usual when he asked me: “Janique do you think the water is less today because of the dam we built yesterday” gosh I love him and his stupid questions! We spent about an hour at the waterfall playing with the water and just spending time together. After that we got into our vans again and drove to Chiang Mai, then we stopped at a really nice hotel and after being in the mountains for so many days we felt very out of place but that feeling soon changed into a feeling of excitement when we saw all the food we could pick from and after having exchange student made food for 3 days believe me when I say each one of us had about 3 plates of food! When we finished eating a few of us got up and went to sit next to the pool talking about normal things like shaving the hair on your toes… out of nowhere David and Ryan jumped into the pool with all their clothes on and shortly after we were all told to get away from the pool but it was fun while it lasted. We made our way to our hotel and then we got a briefing about what we should do and not do at Songkran festival. So Songkran festival is Thai New Year where they throw each other with water and wash away the past year to be clean for the year to come. Chiang mai where we were is where the biggest celebration in Thailand with almost 350 000 people is held. We left the Hotel at 2 and they told us to meet again at 6. When we started walking in the street there was really not so many people and I think most of us were quite disappointed, but then we turned a corner and all of a sudden there were thousands upon thousands of people and we only had to walk a few feet before we were soaking wet and let me just say we found out with a shock that most people use ice water!! Then most of us got buckets of white clay mixed with water that you smear on people and that was a lot of fun to attack your friends with! We walked and walked until we found a spot where they had great music and a steady supply of cold water and then just decided to stay there and start a war with the people across the street. It’s hard to explain what this festival is like if you don’t experience it for yourself, there are so any people around you and it’s just water everywhere it’s so loud that you can’t think, you see your friends faces in between all of these strangers but everybody is laughing and everybody is having fun and helping each other and all of a sudden it doesn’t matter where you are from, who your friends are, if you know the people around you nothing matters, it’s like a few hours of an absolute feeling of not having a care in the world and its only afterword that you realise how amazing that feeling was. Wish I could have that feeling all the time! At about 4 we met up with some of the exchange students from the other districts and decided to walk a bit down the road again and see what we can find, when we had walked for a while we found a foam party and decided to join the fun, we almost drowned in bubbles and my nose and ears were burning and I could not see or breath and there are just people all around you and you can hardly move but you are jumping around and singing and you have your arms around your friends shoulders and if you are not there you can never understand the pure pleasure you feel.  When it was almost 6 we made our way to the MacDonald’s where we needed to meet and we went to sit on the second floor with SO MANY BURGERS AND CHIPS and made a big circle and just ate and ate until the rest of the people came and we went back to the hotel to get dressed and go to dinner. For dinner we went to a steak house and then we split into two groups one group that wanted to go to the night market and one group that just wanted to wonder around in the city. I was in the group that just wanted to wonder around the city and see what we can find to do. We met up with people for the other district again spent time with them until we realised we had to literally run back to the hotel to make it back before curfew. We made it back at 11:58 with 2 minutes to spare and when we sat in the lobby to see that everybody made it back it hit most of us how many days we had gone without proper sleep and how busy our day had been and when we got the go ahead to go to our rooms I took a shower and passed out.  The “last day” of the tour we had most of the day free to go to the festival again but we did not want to even try and make the second day meet the first days standards so we decided to skip that and go to the big shopping centre and spend some time together eating Japanese food followed by Pizza just talking about the trip and being together. I decided to leave that group of people and go and meet up with the other group of people at the old Chinese market and we ate bugs and did some shopping. Then we had to go back to the Hotel where we all had to meet before we go to the train station and we fit 10 people into a tiny tiny car and laughed the whole drive back at how crazy we are to fit 10 people into a car. We got to the hotel and got our bags then we got into the bus and made our way to the train station. When we got there we out all of our bags in one place took a few group photos bought a lot of sweets and stuff to drink and then waited for the train. We found out with a shock that our train car did not have an air con so we open the windows as far as they could open turned the fans into high and tried not to move to much so we won’t get hot. Everybody started sending their countries flags around letting all the other exchange students write little messages on them and then the huge groups started again of everybody fitting into one small space when there is more than enough space everywhere else but we all want to be together. When we decided to go to bed we each had a bunk to sleep in and I took the bottom bunk closed the curtain on the isle side and opened the window just enough to let the wind cool me down and fell asleep. At 3 AM I woke up to thunder and rain and as crazy as it sounds I just kept lying there looking at the sky light up every few seconds leave the window open a little bit letting the rain come in because it just felt to cold and peaceful and I stayed like that until I fell asleep again. That morning when we woke up its like everybody just knew it was the day we had to say goodbye and the whole mood on the train was just sad, people crying here and there, hugs and holding hands and it was so sad but there was so much love in the room/train car. We got to Bangkok and had to wait for the next train so we went to get lunch together. We left all the Rotary members and the Thai students at the train station and just went as a group. We wanted it to be just us and we all crammed into one mini bus thing and put on a song that we all knew and we all sang together and cried a little while we smiled and sang. Then we had lunch and went back to the train station. We all just sat around talking until the last second when we started saying goodbye. The feeling you get when you know you will never see some of these people again is one of the saddest things I have ever felt, the bond between exchange students is something that can never be explained to anybody else they are the only people who really know what you are going through what you had to deal with and how you feel and they are what keep you going at certain points. You build friendships and relationships for 16 years and leave it for 10 months but you build friendships and relationships for 10 months and leave it forever, which one is harder? Needless to say we all cried a lot a lot a lot and getting on the train and going away from most of the other people as we all go the different parts of Thailand sucks. Then we got to Nakhon Pathom and said goodbye to the people close to us that we knew we would see again so that was not that hard and then we went home… and just like that the last trip was over. A million memories over such a short period of time