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Published: November 14th 2007
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Well Chiang Mai has been amazing!!! I've managed to pack quite a lot into the four days I've been here so far (I've still got one day to go).
The first day we arrived from Bangkok on an overnight bus that was actually quite comfortable - except for the Thai guy that sat next to me and fell asleep in my lap. I tried to sleep, but it was hard as he had taken up all of his space and quite a lot of mine, so I just stayed awake listening to some music on my MP3 player, which was cool. I never get much sleep on a bus anyway, even if someones not lying all over me!!
When we arrived we were told that we'd be taken to a bus station in town where we could get transport, instead we were taken to a guesthouse where we were given a half an hour presentation on why we should do a trek with them - just what you're in the mood for at 6am after a 12 hour bus journey eh!! The only good thing was that the guesthouse (Nice Place 2) had a swimming pool and was offering
double rooms, which looked quite nice for only 250 baht (less than 4 quid!!), which was a complete bargain, so we decided to stay there, despite the annoying sales presentation.
We ended up meeting so many people!! The great thing about having a pool is that you don't have that uncomfortable feeling you get if you just walk up to a stranger in a bar and start chatting to them, trying to make friends with them. Instead you can just sit at the pool and say hi to whoever was there and by the end of the day they'll be your mate.
On the first day we met some girls called Sanne and Karin - both were from Holland, although they were travelling separately. We ended up spending most of the day with them by the pool getting a tan, then later on another girl, Thea (from Wales) joined us and we all went to the Chiang Mai Night Bizarre together. The Chiang Mai Night Bizarre is this huge market that opens every night at 6pm selling loads of jewellery, clothes, souvenirs etc. I ended up getting a bit carried away though - I decided that I'm going
to do the whole hippy thing while I'm away this time and I ended up buying loads of tie-dye tshirts, fishermans trousers, genie trousers and floaty flowery things!! I'm going to look so stupid in these things when I get home, but oh well. I'm enjoying wearing them here!! That night we all went out for 'a few drinks' - well you all know what I'm like, a few drinks turned into about 10 Long Island Ice Teas - the strongest drink i could find!! Me and Kim ended up going home on the back of a Thai guys motorbike at 5am (don't worry mum I know him from before and he's a nice guy who wasn't drinking!!).
The next day I was dying, but I felt more sorry for Sanne and Karin as they had signed up for the three day trek - wouldn't have fancied that with a hangover!! So I just spent the entire day in bed. In the evening me, Kim and Thea went to the Sunday Market - this is also a huge market, but this time one set up for the local people and it was so crowded it was unbelievable. It was
the better market though as it felt a lot less touristy. I again spent loads of money!! I don't know where I'm going to fit all these clothes and accessories, I may need to buy another bag to carry them all!!
By Monday I was starting to get a bit bored of lying by the pool, so me and Kim signed up for a half day cookering course with a company called Scenic Asia. A woman called Gay ran the class and she was fantastic!! Really friendly, but also really funny!! The day started off with a market tour, so she could explain all the ingrediants in Thai cookery - unfortunately I couldn't take in much of the information she was telling us in, due to the number of cockroaches running around the market - there were hundreds of them!! Three of them ran over my foot and I screamed like a girl (as you do). I felt really sorry for one of the girls in our group though as about 20 of them ran all up her legs and everything!! Luckily Kim was sensible and wore trainers, so didnt have to feel the sensation of them running over
her toes (I was wearing flip flops). The actual cooking went really well - I can now make spring rolls that taste yummy and I also learnt fried rice, Tom Yam soup and steamed fish in banana leaf curry (think thats what its called).
That evening me, Kim and Thea went off to watch some Thai boxing. I was a bit disappointed at first as it wasn't a proper stadium, but once the boxing started I was glad I came. It was great - surprisingly brutal though!! The most shocking thing for me though, was that half the matches were with teenagers - I think the weight started at 80 pounds, so the first match was literally between kids!! The biggest match of the night was between a Thai guy and an American guy and we were all surprised to see the American knock the Thai guy out with just two punches!! Madness!!
Yesterday though, was the best day of all!! I decided to do a trek as this is the second time I've been to Chiang Mai and until yesterday I'd still not seen any of the surrounding scenery that its famous for. Since Kim didn't really
want to do trekking I didn't want to do the three day trek that everyone else was doing, as it didn't seem fair to leave her on her own for that long, so instead I signed up for a one day trek to include white water rafting. The trek turned out to be amazing. When I got picked up it was only me and two Americans, who were doing cycling not trekking. It turned out that I was the only one who wanted to do the trek. I felt a bit worried at first as I'd imagined the day to be quite a social one, but my guide Bon, was brilliant and kept me entertained all day. Although to tell you the truth I wouldn't have been able to talk much, even if I'd wanted to. The trek lasted about 3 hours in total and was virtually all uphill - some parts it were like scrambling up a vertical wall, so I was struggling to breathe, let alone talk! I think my fear of heights must be going, as I managed it without being too scared, atlhough I slipped at one point, but luckily Bon caught me. Half way through
we stopped by a beautiful waterfall we we had lunch and cooled off a bit. Bon had cut down some banana leafs, so we ate Pad Thai, chicken, sticky rice and chille paste off the banana leaf with chopsticks - it was so cool!! I think I actually preferred the fact that it was just me and the guide as I felt like a proper explorer!!
At the end of the trek with met up with all the rest of the groups for the white water rafting. This was my favourite part of the day!! The river was at just the right height for me as the rapids were exciting, rather than scary. I got absolutely drenched, but managed not to fall in. When this had finished I expected the day to be over, however Bon let me do bamboo rafting as well, for free!! This was hilarious!! Instead of the relaxing, scenic ride I had imagined, my group spent the entire time under at least four inches of water as there were too many people on our raft and it kept sinking. To make things even worse Bon was stood up on our raft rocking it from side
to side and of course I ended up being the only one to fall in!! It was really funny though. All in all a fantastic day!!
This afternoon I think I might try to have a massage - there's a womens prison where you can get a massage and the money you give goes directly to the prisoners for when they're released - its part of a rehabilitation programme. Sounds quite cool though. Tomorrow we're heading off towards Laos - I can't wait to get back to my favourite country!! I hope it's not changed much in two years.
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