Chiang Mai

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After a freezing 16 hour train journey we arrived in Chiang Mai, (freezing due to the air con). Luckily we arrived on a Sunday so it was the walking street market which was a huge market the length of the main/longest street in Chiang Mai (Paul felt it was a very very long street as well). The market was ace and consisted of shops, food stalls and people busking in the middle which was cool. It was especially interesting at 6pm when the national anthem came on loud speaker and everyone stopped what they were doing to show respect!

Chiang Mai was action packed for us.....

First we did white water rafting, so much fun, it was a 10km raft down the Maetang River. Even the journey up to the start point was interesting over all the bumps going up into the mountains. We were in a boat with 3 others and the guide. We were an awesome team and only got flipped out of the raft once (unfortunately on the easiest section of rapids, woops).

We also did the Jungle Flight which was a huge zip wire course in the jungle, so cool. The best part was the 40m drop (they claimed it was an abseil but they definately just dropped you!) Some of the zip wires we got to do in pairs which was funny as one of us was always faster and dragging the other along. They guys who took us round were crazy going upside down along the wires and one even wore a cape (he must have felt like superman). After the jungle flight we discovered Chiang Mai cocktails which turned into a bit of a pub crawl whcih gave us a bad head for the next adventure...

The final one was a hike and bike. The hike was 15km and 1000m ascent in 2 and a half hours through the jungle and then 2 hours of going back down the mountain on a bike. The hike was good with the guide telling us bits of info as we went but the bike was fantastic! At the start Rachel was petrified!! She went so slowly she may as well have stopped! We both picked up confidence quickly and were soon flying through along the dirt track through the coffee fields. It ended at a lake where we had a bamboo hut to eat our Thai curry in!

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