Chiang Mai

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Chiang Mai

After my mind, body and soul sculpting in Phuket, it was time to meet up with Vince and Tam for a bit of a cultural injection. The meeting place was Bangkok airport. I had flown in from Phuket, and they had flown in from Hong Kong, both flights arriving at around the same time and we were all booked onto the same flight into Chiang Mai from Bangkok. After a quick meal in the airport we were flying north and it wasn’t long before we found ourselves in the cultural centre of northern Thailand, Chiang Mai.

Vince had managed to find a fantastic little guest house to serve as our accommodation.

Rachamankha Flora House is a beautiful little guest house located in the heart of the Chiang Mai old town. The stunning white building is set a little back from the road, an unusual feature compared to the buildings adjacent. This determines that the weary traveller is required to walk an extra fifteen meters. This is, however, not so much an inconvenience as a treat because the driveway is incredibly clean and it also creates the space for a good patch of flora that would not be thought out of place in the annual Chelsea Flower Show. The garden is immaculate. The soft, lush lawn, dotted with multicoloured flower beds leads up to the owners patio to one side of the main entrance - also a quaint little tiled patio. Small trees stand in a row along the white wall holding up flower boxes and white lanterns in a welcoming gesture for arriving guests. Next to the driveway sits a little office - the headquarters of “Mr. Korn’s Tours.”

It was late evening by the time we arrived at the guest house, which meant that we had little time to decide and organise what we would set out as the itinerary for the few days we had in Chiang Mai. Enter Mr Korn aka “Korny Baby.” Sat on dark wooden benches at the bottom of the garden, we poured over the library of laminated tour advertisements that Korny Baby had selected for us to peruse. After very little deliberation, we decided that the choices were obvious: flying through the jungle canopy, elephant riding, whitewater rafting and a cooking course.


Flying through Jungle Canopy

There are two companies that are set up to do this: Flight of the Gibbon and Jungle Flight. The former was the pioneer and owned by a foreign company while the latter is locally owned and run and apparently higher and longer. To support local industry, because Tammy wanted to fly higher and go further (crazy girl), and because Korny Baby had answered our question regarding the chances of seeing a Gibbon with a raised eyebrow and a head tilt, we found ourselves on the way to the “Jungle Filght” location bright and early on day one.

The course is made up of “33 Platforms, 2 Sky-bridges, 300 meters of the Longest and Highest (40-50 meters) spans of cable, 4 Abseil, 1 Spiral stairway, 570 meters suspended Canopy & Swing-walk.” To give a better idea, the website shows the complexity of the setup.

http://www.jungle-flight.com/en/index.php/ui/pages/20/3

The secure safety equipment and the shenanigans of the guides soon turned intense concentration and furrowed eyebrows into carefree wide smiles as we conquered zipline after zipline and spiral staircase after spiral staircase. Included were a few “abseiling” points, which turned out to be more a freefall than an abseil, bringing out the odd involuntary grimace, but the adrenaline rush was always worth it.

At times it was difficult to stop to admire the view and appreciate the surroundings, but I forced myself to do this as often as I remembered. Much of the course was set up under the canopy, but there were a few platforms where one would look out over the canopy undulating away into the distance.

After a long day, we arrived back at the guesthouse. Exhaustion was apparent but harness bruising around the bum and crotch surprisingly not very apparent. The most apparent side effect had to be the smiles on our faces.


The Mixed Tour

In order to beef up the tour offerings so as to be able to have more bargaining power over the price, what tends to happen is that the operators bundle together a load of activities. For this reason, it’s fairly difficult to do an elephant ride without going whitewater rafting, which sounds grand, but what you also need to throw in is a trip to the butterfly farm, the orchard farm, a bamboo raft ride and a trip to a run-down village where the local jungle tribes are selling trinkets. This is what we did on our second day.

The butterfly farm and the orchard farm were located in the same place, so we managed to tick those boxes fairly quickly. I must admit, though, the variety of orchards, both in size and in colour managed to impress. What I didn’t mention earlier was that the tour also included a jungle trek, which culminated in a visit to a waterfall. Roughly translated this meant a ten minute dusty walk to view a trickle of water over a few rocks. Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by the odd trip to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, but we could have done without this interlude. The next part of our day was the highlight for me. Having also whitewater rafted on the Zambezi River in Zimbabwe, I was not expecting much white water in Thailand. Pleasantly surprised, however, and pleasantly drenched by the whitewatering stint, we all stepped off the rafts properly impressed by the experience. After lunch the elephant ride was much fun too, and we all got back to the guesthouse again with smiles on our faces.


The Cooking Course

One of the often recommended things to do in Chiang Mai is a cooking class. The first thought on this was along the lines of “huh?” However, it turned out to be one the most fun mornings. We arrived at the little staging area not far from the guesthouse, and were greeted very warmly by a pretty young lady who was to be our guide and instructional chef for the day.

In England, a welcoming snack may consist of crisps and dip, with the new age health fundies throwing in a few carrot sticks with humus. In South Africa, the latter would most certainly be complimented with a selection of biltong. In Thailand, however, the welcoming snack, known as Miang Kum, is something a little different. It consists of Beetlenut leaf, diced ginger, diced lime (with skin), diced shallots, shaved and roasted coconut, peanuts, whole chillies, and a rich palm sugar based sweet and sour sauce. I believe, through Goolgling it to get the name, that shrimp can be added, but this is by no means necessary. All these ingredients are presented on a platter and it’s up to the guest to create a mouth-sized portion for him or herself. Firstly, a beetlenut leaf is folded in half long ways and then sideways in order to create a cone shape. Into the cone then go the ingredients in the amounts preferable to the eater. Ginger is generally followed by lime and peanuts in equal proportions. After that a sprinkling of roasted coconut and diced shallots is added and then, for the “little bomb in the mouth” a pinch of chilli. The morsel is then covered in the sauce. The entire little packet is then tipped, pushed or hungrily shoved into the mouth. This may sound like a lot of effort for a mouthful, but just one bight down on this little treat disperses the flavours and sends the eater into a state of oriental culinary bliss.

Having started like this, it was difficult to believe that our taste buds would be impressed by anything that would come afterwards; especially as the grub was going to be prepared, cooked and dished up by our own hands. Little did we know. Pad Thai was a popular choice to start off with, and Tam, Vince and I, having tasted the others’ efforts discovered how slight differences in the amounts of oil, fish sauce and soy sauce could have a marked difference on the resulting taste - each one, however, fantastic in its own right. Tam then, after not much coaxing, volunteered to cook the ingredients that everyone would wrap up into spring rolls a little later - in a very accomplished fashion I must add. After that, Vince mashed out, with a mortar and pestle, a very “colourful” spicy papaya salad, which turned out to live up to its namesake in a serious way and not because it contained lots of papaya. I then impressed the miniskirt off our instructor with my spring roll wrapping technique - too much paper plane folder in highschool. Not done with impressing, Vince and my green curry paste was hailed as an achievement after Vince’s very fine fine chopping, and my much bashing about with another pestle in another mortar. Tam’s very tasty coconut something or other soup blew Vince and my Shrimp Tom Yam efforts out of the boiling pot, but all in all, I think it’s fair to say that we all passed with flying colours.

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Comments

[James]

Cost of Jungle Flight
Just wanted to let your readers know that the Jungle Flight prices have reportedly gone up, but the price on paper is at least 1000B more than the cost that can be negotiated to. Don't pay more than 1800B for the full day package B Jungle Flight (or Flight of the Gibbon). The actual base price may be even lower still... that's the lowest that I have heard of anyone paying (as of Jan 2010).