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Published: June 25th 2007
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After 4 days chilling out in Ko San Road in Bangkok we caught a night train to Chiang Mai. After a surprisingly good night sleep we arrived in Chiang Mai at 9am and checked into Julies guest house which we were both impressed with as we had a really nice clean room for 160baht (₤2.40) and they also had a great garden area with a cool chilled out atmosphere. However we were determined not to get caught up there and do nothing again so that first day was mostly spent organizing the days ahead.
The following day we went on a cookery course. It cost us 800 bt (₤12.00) for the full day but was completely worth it because I have never eaten so much good food (even though I do say so myself!) in one day.
Before the cooking began we had a tour around the market which was quite interesting. When the market tour was over our teacher took us to the kitchen and first of all he cooked hot and sour soup and then we each went to our kitchen area and cooked our own and got to gobble it all up afterwards. Altogether we probably
made about 6 courses and they were all delicious. I did ok as I only burnt the pan once whilst I was making my red curry but it wasn’t ruined thankfully as the teacher quickly gave me a new pan. The class was finished about 4pm and we were all completely stuffed!
The next day we had packed our small day packs and were ready to go on our 3 day 2 night trek which cost us 1800 baht (₤26.00) each as we choose the “none touristy trek” but we thought it was pretty reasonably as it included everything except for beer. We were on the trek with 6 other people - 3 other Brits called Owen, Harry and Helen, one Canadian called Mary, one other Aussie called Daniel and one American girl called Danielle. It was a good mix and we got on well. Our guide was called Map and he was great- a funny little guy who was always happy.
Day 1 of the trek we arrived in a small village about midday and after having lunch we walked around the village for a bit and just as were thinking that this was nice and easy
we started to walk up-hill. After 20 minutes we stopped for a break and every single one of us were sweating like pigs! After a couple of hours later it got easier and we were all chatting and laughing again. I don’t know whether it was the competitive side of me coming out but I was constantly trying to be in front of everyone and Sonny was always behind me shouting, “It’s not a race Kathryn, SLOW DOWN!” Well I learnt my lesson as I slipped and fell the most out of the group that day. I think the funniest fall for everyone was when I fell in the stream! However they were all impressed with the way that I landed but that was only because I was trying to protect the camera that I had around my neck. Thankfully the case was water resistant so the camera survives another day.
As I mentioned earlier I was always itching to be in front of everyone so I was just behind the guide (“up his arse” as Sonny says) and after my constant slipping he gave me a pointed stick which did help a lot. However I bet he wished he
didn’t give it to me as one time I slipped and was on my way down to the ground so I speared my stick in an attempt to save me. Unfortunately for the guide it wasn’t the ground I speared it was his ankle. I only realized this when he started shouting with pain! Oops!!!
That night we had the best and biggest feed which consisted of 2 big bowls of green curry, spicy salad and sweet and sour vegetable stir fry. The food was so good that it would have been rude not to wash it down with Chang beer. The last four up and still drinking was Helen, Mary, Sonny (surprise, surprise) and me. As everyone else was in bed we thought we’d take ourselves outside to the river and stand in there and have a little chat. Well it all got a little bit messy in the end because Helen ended up breaking one of her flip flops and Sonny lost one of his in the river which in the morning he was quite annoyed about as he only bought them the day before.
On the morning after the night before we were all feeling
a little hung over so instead of trekking to the elephants, Map had arranged for the elephants to come to us. So the morning was nice and easy sitting back and having a ride on the elephants. It was actually really cool because we were each allowed to take the leading role and sit on the elephants head!
After an easy hour and a half we said goodbye to the elephants and started our slippery trek to the waterfalls. It was worth it because it was pretty cool. We all stripped to our swimmers and took a dip underneath. We didn’t stay there long because it was very cold and powerful. After staying there for 5 minutes for a photo shoot we all looked like drowned rate (especially me and not so much the two girls on the end). We then continued our trek stopping only for lunch. This time Helen topped the table for falling over the most. We arrived at our destination which was a small village late afternoon. We had a look around but only took 5 mins as it was very small. Again we had a yummy dinner and hit the Chang. Whilst drinking and playing
cards a bunch of local kids came all dressed traditionally and started dancing.
Our last trekking day was the easiest as we only did about an hours trek and then went bamboo rafting. Rafting was a good laugh but it wasn’t a very pleasant experience as the river was extremely dirty and our raft was falling apart. The four of us on our raft were completely soaking wet but the guys on the other raft were absolutely dry- not happy! After our bamboo rafting we were taken back to our guesthouses.
Well we had planed our last day in Chiang Mai to be a day of site seeing but we were easily persuaded by Helen to come to the horse races with her and Harry. After all there are only so many temples you can see and I have always found a day at the races to be very memorable. We weren’t disappointed because it was a great day out. It was also quite good because there was only a few other white people there and after coming from Ko San Road it was good to mix with the local Thai gamblers. Unfortunately me and Sonny both didn’t
win although Sonny thought he did at one point but when he went to collect his winnings he realized that the guy put the wrong house on for him- his own fault I suppose for not checking his ticket. He wasn’t very happy but it was quite a funny moment. The races finished at 6pm and as we were having so much fun we stayed out and didn’t return to our guesthouse until 3am!! Oh dear not the wisest move considering we had a bus journey at 10am.
The next stop is Laos but it’s not goodbye to Thailand yet because we’re coming back in a months time…
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Tony Smith
non-member comment
I'm jealous
David gave me the address of your blog and I've just read your progress so far. Really impressed with where you've been and what you've see. Looking forward to the next instalment. Tony