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Silk Factory
Looks incredibly difficult to me. After titling this entry, I searched Travelblog and found at least 500 matching entries, many of which appear to be about treks from Chiang Mai. Great minds think alike I guess.
But first, the craft market. San Kampaeng. About 15km outside of the city. When we asked the innkeeper where we to catch a tuk tuk out there, he told us not to worry, he would have his "driver" take us, but until 1:30 (this was at about 12). Sounded a bit suspicious but I thought I remembered someone commenting on hostelworld.com about the friendly driver so we decided to wait. 1:30 rolls around, we hop in little Toyota and we're off. Pass a sign that says San Kampaeng 15km. So far so good. Not 30 seconds later though, the driver flicks on the turn signal for an unscheduled stop at a silk factory. Slightly befuddled, we tour the factory, learn much about the art of silk weaving, decline to purchase anything from the expansive gift shop, and return to the car. Pull back out on the road for another minute or so before turning again, this time to a "lacquer factory." I still don't know exactly what that entails,
Under my Umbrella...
ella, ella, eh. or something like that. but they too had an expansive gift shop. Before we had gone 5km out of town we toured those places as well as a gem factory and an umbrella factory. After declining a tour of a woodcarving factory, I asked the driver if we could finally go to San Kampaeng. Here's the play-by-play starring Mr. Rodos, the befuddled American tourist, and our nameless driver, played by himself.
Befuddled Tourist (BT): Uhh, excuse me. Can we go to San Kampaeng now?
Driver (D): San Kampaeng? Why want to go there? Nothing there.
BT: But we told you from the start that's where we wanted to go. The guidebooks and other travelers claim there's a handicraft village there.
D: Guidebooks? Nothing there. Maybe 20-30 years ago but now only these factories.
BT (remembering the pamphlet from the Tourism Bureau about not raising your voice or getting visibly angry): Ok, but we've heard differently. Can you take us there regardless?
D (attempting a change in tactics): Oh, San Kampaeng. We already there. See, this San Kampaeng.
Meanwhile, we pass a sign that says San Kampaeng, 5 km.
BT (exasperated): Ok, we give up. This is
My First Massage
It kinda hurt... disappointing, though. But just take us back to the hostel.
Note: I'm not sure about the veracity of this statement. Can I really say I was disappointed about missing out on a
handicraft village. No, I don't think so. But the exchange was frustrating. I really don't know for sure if there's anything in San Kampaeng but many people who go on the handicraft village tour end up with an experience similar to ours. Sometimes you just have to laugh and go with it...all part of the experience, parts of which, by the way, were quite interesting. The conversation was far more humorous in person (although not at the time) than in my version here.
The following day, while Christine posted her latest blog entry, I was laid up in bed with some sort of stomach thingy. We had scheduled a cooking course for that day and though I wasn't feeling great before we left, I thought I could tough it out. After a bumpy van ride to the market to shop for ingredients I realized that a day of cooking wasn't in the cards and begged out. They were very nice and let us reschedule though. Felt
much better after a morning of rest and reading. Took the free bikes from the hostel out for a spin in the afternoon to look at some wats (temples). Walked into one room where a monk prayed with us and gave us good luck bracelets. We were weary of this at first since we had a bad experience in a temple in Malaysia when some guy basically wouldn't let us leave without making a donation (to his pocket, I think). This time the monk, after finishing his lengthy prayer and accompanying actions, set out a donation box but we had forgotten our wallets at home so legitimately didn't have any money. The kind monk renewed my faith in religion when he allowed us to leave without making the suggested donation.
Walked around town for the night, stopping at a couple bars to play pool and Connect 4. Turned in early to get ready for...
Jungle Time.
Got picked up at 9:30. There were 14 trekkers total divided into two groups of 7. The other 5 people in our group were from Canada and Germany and knew each other from living and working in Australia for the last
year or so. It seems that everyone has been touring the world for far more than two months. Our guide, Yut, was quite the character. As we're driving into the mountains, one of the girls we were with looks into the cab and notices that Yut has pulled out what looks like a Glock and appears to be loading it. Hmm, we think. Why does Yut need a gun? What have we gotten ourselves into here? Turned out the gun was fake (I'm telling you, it looked real to me) and only shot platic bullets. We really dodged a bullet there (haha).
First stop was an uneventful one at the market to pick up supplies. Quick sidenote on food safety. Chicken was purchased for dinner which then sat in the back of the truck or in a backpack uncooled for the next 7 hours. Things like that are the norm over here. Food sits out in the heat for extended periods of time. Unheard of in the US. Took a while to get used to but I'm still not comfortable with it!
Second stop a sweet waterfall. Very powerful (read: painful) when directly underneath it. Refreshing though. See
pics.
After a quick stop for a fried rice lunch, drove up into the mountains around Chiang Mai and got dropped off for the trek. About half way through the sweaty 3 hours of hiking, I finally figured out why my feet were hurting. A few friendly leeches had decided to latch on for some dinner. Felt much better after removing them although those suckers make for a bloody mess. The mosquitoes love Christine and the leeches enjoy me. Stopped at a hilltribe village on the way. Very remote way of life (and, from the looks of the people, one lacking food). Arrived at our stopping point for the night (another hilltribe village) around 5. "Showered" in the river, this time on full alert for more leeches. I'll spare you the pictures of that although our photo documentarian Christine captured the moment on camera (never fear, I had a suit on).
Scarfed down a chicken curry dinner. Enjoyed a few (ok, more than a few) warm Changs with our fellow trekkers and dropped off to bed (on the floor under mosquito nets) after 10.
Awoke early the next morning, ate a quick breakfast and trekked for about
an hour to the elephant camp. I won't get into the ethics of elephant riding except to say that PETA wouldn't approve of how the elephants are allegedly treated. The ride was incredible, especially sense I expected to ride around in a circle for an hour like ponies at the fair. Instead we rode along the river, crossing several times. Saw some wild cows along the way. Sounds like an oxymoron, though, wild cows. A short hike from where we got off the elephants brought us to another village where the guides put together bamboo rafts. We floated two hours on these cool not so little things, navigating some mild rapids along the way. Floating down the river throught the middle of the jungle felt like a scene from a movie. The rafting pretty much concluded the trek except for a terribly enjoyable 2 hour ride back to town. Felt good to take a real shower and, despite our exhaustion, managed to pack down lots of food for dinner.
Cooking School
Rescheduled the cooking school for Sunday. Much better than our abbreviated first experience. Only 3 students total instead of 10 or 11 when we went the first
Hot Springs
You can only swim in them once in your life. Why, you might ask? Because they are 100 degrees celcius. boiling hot. time. The "3rd wheel" was a real nice kid named Kevin from Scotland. It was pretty much my dream day as we made 6 dishes, meaning we ate almost continuously from 9 to 3. One of the dishes we learned was Pad Thai, one of my favorites.
Took another overnight train back to Bangkok last night. Heading to the tailors soon for our fitting. Then off to the airport for a short flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Home of Angkor Wat (think Tomb Raider).
And last but not least, Happy 75th Birthday Dad!
Adam
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