12.03.2008 Chiang Mai

First tour

Today it was time to do a bit of a tourist program. We were picked up at the home stay in the mourning. First stop was elephant riding. I would have liked to skip that part. Not only was I not as excited as everybody else but also because I'm not supportive of it. I don't think that these animals should be abused as a tourist attraction. But it was part of the tour and I guess it wouldn't have made a difference if I would have stayed in the tour bus refusing to join.

After the tour we all went back in the bus and drove to Karen Village where a mountain tribe lives that has come to Thailand from China about 100 years ago. They still have a rather primitive lifestyle and have great weaving skills. We got a demonstration and were then asked to buy something of course.

It was then time for a 30 minute walk. I really enjoyed it for the landscape and the rain forest were really beautiful and it was also good to get a bit of exercise. Finally we arrived at the waterfall I was looking forward to see. I really wanted to go swimming and had my bikini on underneath my cloth. But when I put my feet into the water I quickly decided to give that a miss. It was so so cold.

We then went to another village. Not really sure what we were supposed to do there but buy souvenirs. They let us enter one house alright but didn't really tell us anything about the villagers and only pointed towards all the tables with handmade things.

After a packed program in the morning we finally had lunch. K had been looking forward to that since he was about to starve (as he is all the time). We had rice with four different side dishes. The food was really delicious. K nicked a bottle of water. Unfortunately it started to leak in his bag and his camera and mobile phone got wet (luckily the camera worked again in the evening. Not sure if the mobile phone ever fully recovered).

In the afternoon it was time for more action. We went bamboo rafting. There's no way not to get wet but since it was quite hot we really enjoyed the splashing. It was a good and fun adventure to paddle down the river (K did the paddling again, I simply enjoyed the environment).

In the evening we went to have pizza at the place next to our home stay. As much as I love Thai food it was really good to have something else for a change :)

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Part of trip: Round-the-World Trip Part I

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