Oh My Buddha...

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Hi Friends and Family!

This is Amy. I know its been a while since we've posted but we've just returned from our trekking adventure (...actually adventure doesn't quite even capture it...) here in Chiang Mai. We decided we would need each and everyone of us to tell the full story of the last few days on the Trek so I will just bring you up to speed on how we got to Chiang Mai then pass the baton to someone. Oh but just as a tidbit, the expression there in the title is one we picked up from our tour guide on the trek. You might say we have used it a LOT over the last few days 😊

Okay, so, we should back up a bit. Last we spoke, Fee told you about the Market we went to in Bangkok (four days later and I'm still trying to process the vassness of the Market). Well, afterwards, we returned to our hostel to pack and prepare for our train ride to Chiang Mai. Before we left, we did have what has really been our only unpleasant dining experience at the cafe of the hostel. You're likely thinking it had something to do with bugs, a common cuisine here, but no. Let's just say a good lesson was learned by all about giving into our Western food cravings (which occure only occasionally because the Thai food here is so good). I won't go into great detail but poor Sabrina was served a mangled plate of Mac and Cheese that I think turned everyone's stomaches equally. She was such a trooper about it so as not to offend our nice waitress but it has easily been the most unedible dish we have encountered so far (of course we have a picture!).

Thinking we'd give ourselves plenty of time to make our 7:30pm train ride, we stepped out (or more accurately, waddled out) with our packs to find two cabs to take us to the train station at 6:00pm. Sabrina, Rebekah and I grabbed one cab (I believe an earlier post described the tourist taxi game we have to play with the drivers before you can even get in the car, negoitating every last detail of where you want to go, and for how much - truelly, challenging in the horrific traffic of Bangkok) and Taylor, Ash, Fee and Rachel got another. As you can imagine, anxiety about being seperated AND making our train on time was a bit high. After about an hour of some tense waiting, with some of us at the train station and some of us still smushed in a cab waiting in traffic, we boarded the our sleeper train with 22 minutes to spare. Concesus from the group was Bangkok's been awesome but we're weary of the traffic and ready for a new city. We boarded the train, looking forward to a good night's sleep and a leisurely night's ride 😊 Chiang Mai here we come!

Ha, well, I don't know about leisurely or comfortable but the train ride was without question an experience to laugh about. Perhaps my expectations of a sleeper train ride was somewhat skewed by the old movies, but I don't seem to remember any part where the heroine squats over a hole in the floor to use the bathroom - that empties onto the tracks! I can't remember who finally made this discovery several hours into our 10 hour ride but I can very proudly report that we took it in stride. Basically, we rattled, lurched, banged, and chugged our way to Chiang Mai through the night but you know, each one of us got some much needed sleep and with all of us in the same car, dangling our heads over the edge of our top bunks that pulled out of the wall to talk to one another, it was just like we were in Cedar Meadow Lodge at camp. We all agreed that nobody would ever forget that ride.

Still laughing about our train experience, and feeling really efficient because we hadn't wasted a whole day just traveling, we arrived in Chiang Mai around 9:30am. Instantly knew that this would be our type of town. The difference between Bangkok and Chaing Mai is really the same as the difference between New York City and Princeton, New Jersey. We would need to survive the herd of taxi drivers and guesthouse owners wanting our business waiting for all the tourists who stepped off the train (picture the paparazzi swarming Paris Hilton here) which we did, wisely holding out for a guesthouse that came highly recommended in our Lonely Planet guidebook (basically, our trip bible). The Eagle Guesthouse is in the heart of downtown Chiang Mai, in a section very affectionately referred to as the "tourist ghetto." There are row after row of shops, bars, and restraurants all right here within walking distance (no cabs!). We quickly unloaded our gear, booked our trek through our guesthouse for the following day and proceeded to a place called the Baiporn to eat. The food was AMAZING and we created quite a scene (as if we haven't already created enough scenes on this trip) sharing all of our dinners and gorging ourselves silly. We left exceedingly happy, with plenty of time to check out the Tribal Muesum before our trek into the hilltribes.

Now, we agreed that Fiona should get first crack at the trek blog for reasons I'll allow her to explain, so I will just set the scene a bit here for her. We decided on a two day, one overnight trek up into the hilltribes. We would depart at 9:00am and our first day's itinerary would included a stop at a waterfall, then hotsprings, a 3-4 hour trek to our hilltribe village where we would spent the night. The following day we would trek more to an eleplant camp where we would ride elephants and finish with a rafting trip down the river. We studied up at the Tribal muesum and learned that there are 4 ethnic groups recognized by the Thai government that inhabit the moutainous region here in northern Thailand. We would be staying with the Karen tribe. Our guide would be Chi. We were more than pumped about this trek.

Okay, its all you Fee.

Otherwise, all of us are doing well, safe and having a blast. Hope everyone back home is doing the same. We love and miss you!

Amy

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Comments

[Arlene]

oh...
hahaha. great visuals aim.. sounds like it's going amazingly.