It's a REAL jungle out there

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The sleeper train got us into Chiang Mai early on tuesday morning. We pulled into the station alongside the orient express. After avoiding crowds of accomodation touts we managed to reach a telephone and arrange for Peter (from the Chiang Mai youth hostel) to come and pick us up.

Chiang Mai is Thailand's 2nd city, although with a population of c116,000 it is more like a town compared to the chaos of Bangkok. At the centre of the city is the C13th walled old town, with an intact moat and numerous temples. We visited only a couple in the heat:

Wat Chedi Luang - with the ruins of a C15th 85m Chedi (which once housed the "emerald Bhudda" we saw in Bangkok).

Wat Phra Sing - the most important Wat complex in the city and most interesting the location of "Monk Chat" where we were able to sit down and discuss life, Bhuddism, the weather and even Liverpool Football club with the monks.

Chiang Mai also have thriving street life - vendors, markets, food stalls etc.

Perhaps the best day of this whole trip was when we took a one-day trek into the surrounding hills (jungle) - which is the real reason most people come up to the Chiang Mai region. We visited a Karen hilltribe settlement on foot, rode our very own elephant, walked to Mae Wang waterfalls and trekked through the most stunning 'countryside' (banana and papaya trees, rice fields, forested hills, fast flowing streams etc.) to a monkey-brain-eating Meo hilltribe village. Tim was delighted when the guide casually warned "watch out...big snake...cobra" whilst pointing into the undergrowth we were trampling through and Emma was equally delighted when something rustled right next to her feet and the guide claimed he had NO IDEA WHAT IT POSSIBLY COULD HAVE BEEN!

The best part of the whole day had to be our hour's ride on 'Met-teg-uer' (phonetic spelling) our 10yr old female elephant. The other three elephants in the group were all content to give their riders the conventional riding-along the-path-experience. However, we were treated to the full 'off-road' experience - dragged through trees, treated to an excursion into a ditch with a good water source. Also, one has not lived until an indian elephant has sneezed (repeatedly) onto one's foot and we're not even going to say what was going on at the other end! Still, fun was had by all (particularly the elephant) and we fed her a huge bunch of bananas at the end to say thank you.

We ended the day rafting in (not "on") the Wang river on rafts made of 20ft pieces of bamboo - very loosely lashed together. We knew what we were in for when setting off from the river bank our pilot (who turned out to be a trainee) promptly slipped off the raft and fell into the river - a feat he repeated several times on the journey.

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Photos

Orient Express
"Hey Tim...can we afford this for the way back?"

Wat Chedi Luang
Chiang Mai old town

Elephant full size
Our elephant is the one on the right (posing for the photo)

Elephant trekking
Taken from above - the elephant is much bigger than it looks in this photo

Meo hilltribe village
With banana plantation in the background

Bamboo rafting
On the Mae Wang river