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Published: November 16th 2006
After an incredible month in the communist country of Vietnam, we were happy to be boarding a plane to Thailand. The moment we arrived in Bangkok, our new traveling hub, we booked an overnight train ticket to Chaing Mai. Having a few hours to spare, we indulged ourselves in some of the finest kai satay (two orders of chicken skewers with peanut sauce- so good) and some spicy chicken curry. It was great to get a little spice and flavor back into our lives. Vietnamese cuisine was good, but it just lacked the flavor and spices that Thai food bursts with. We were definitely happy to be back in Thailand.
After our overnight train we arrived in the mountainous region of Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is the third largest city in Thailand and the largest in the Northern Territory. It was once the commercial capital of Thailand and was part of the Golden Triangle (the Opium growing empire stradling the Thailand, Burma and Laos borders). Upon our early arrival, we found a cheap accomodation and decided to explore the old city. Stone walls and a moat enclose the inner city. We entered through one of the four large gates and
were greeted by a bustling city. Tuk Tuk drivers incessantly offered their services, Starbucks and 7-11s lined the streets and people seemed to be milling around everywhere. We had a few traveling tasks that we first had to accomplish: changing our flights (we need more time in Thailand), booking a trekking tour through the jungle and buying a new camera. Despite the plethora of agencies that provided similar treks, we shopped around, found one we fancied and booked it for the following morning. The three day trek that we chose promised to be on a non-touristic route and vowed to give the most authentic experience. That's exactly what we wanted! We then purchased a great new digital camera and sat down for a relaxing dinner. The northern region of Thailand is renown for their spicy cuisine that explodes with flavor. Less coconut milk is used and is rather substituted with tiny dynamic chillies. After we finished our delicious, mouth-burning curry we decided to call it an early night in anticipation for the next day.
We woke up the next morning, packed a small backpack and waited patiently for our group to come pick us up. When our pick-up truck
arrived, we hopped in the back and met our four other traveling companions: an Israeli couple and two Dutch girls. We were also introduced to our guide, Corn, who would be leading us through the rainforest for the next several days. As protocol, before leaving the city, we stopped at the tourist police station to inform them that we would be leaving the city and entering the jungle. Good to know that they are keeping track of us. Ironically, the police officer checking us out was from Eureka, California. He was a retired cop who was living and working in Thailand. We started talking with him when he made a comment about keeping an eye out for tanks and military men. Mike laughed and the officer quickly returned with a stern look, "I ain't joking, there was a god damn military coup last night. There's Thai military everywhere!" We were shocked and a bit confused, but our trekking mates confirmed the news. Wow, we realized how non-up-to-date we were on our current affairs. After talking a little with our fellow trekkers, we realized that it wasn't much of a threat and shrugged it off. As Corn would later inform us,
Thailand has had four non-violent coups in his lifetime (a mere 24 years) and then assured us that there was nothing to worry about. Minds appeased, we began our journey into the jungle. We sat in the back of the pick-up, locally known as a sawrang, for nearly an hour before we reached the first stop, the Karon Village. The Karon people inhabited this hillside village and make their living through agricultural cultivation. As we walked up the hills, we noticed how the homes were quite advanced (the most civilized we would see in the next three days). Corn told us that the government had given these people their homes and the land. We watched as children played in front of their houses and made our way to the top of the mountain where several greenhouses provided an additional aesthetic to the colorful panoramic of the valleys and mountains. Corn informed us that the people in this region used to make a living from the production of Opium. However, the government recently stepped in and outlawed the drug. To subsidize the people, the government provided land for crops and flowers. We hiked through the hillside village for close to an
hour before we jumped back into the sawrang. As the muddy and dodgy road dwindled down, we came to a point where the truck stopped and we were told to get out. This was the beginning of our trek. As soon as we got out, the already lush scenery became more vivid and greener and greener. We were in a narrow valley, in between the thick vegetation and grazing water buffalo. Consistent with our luck, and due to the fact that September is the wetest month in Chiang Mai, it began downpouring within ten minutes of our trek. Nowhere to run or hide, we put on our raincoats and began the first leg of our journey. Soon enough, we were engulfed in the tropical forest and were amazed by the breathtaking beauty of nature. Along our hike, we crossed slippery narrow logs that functioned as bridges over rushing water, leaped (and actually into a few mistaken times) large streams of water and weaved our way through small gaps in the dense foliage. In no time, we were drenching wet and covered in mud. Mike commented on how he felt like he was Charlie Sheen in Platoon, trekking through the jungle
with a large rucksack in the pouring rain. All he needed was an M-16. At one challenging log crossing, where balancing skills were definitely in order, the Israeli guy picked up a bamboo stick to help steady himself across. A few minutes after successfully crossing, he itched his neck and found a leech sucking his blood. Panic strucken, he yelled for Corn to remove the leech. After pulling the blood sucking creature off, Corn informed us that due to the heavy amounts of rain leeches would be everywhere. Great. From then on, we checked our shoes every so often (Meghan did every minute). As we continued on the trek, the rain finally ceased and we made our way through dozens of fertile rice fields. We walked, one foot in front of the other, on the narrow, raised ledges that separated each plantation. More times than not, we slipped off the ledge and dunked our already soaking shoes into the rice paddies. In several of the plantations, we watched as water buffalos and locals worked harmoniously in the peaceful and serene surroundings. After a tiresome two hour trek, we arrived at a tiny village that consisted of nothing more than a
few thatched structures. This would be our home for the night. Filthy, smelly and wet we were happy to take our shoes off, take showers and put clean, dry clothes on. As Mike was peeling off his muddy and drenching sock, he noticed that his ankle was bleeding profusely from a tiny hole. Only one culprit could be responsible: a leech. We never found the little guy, but we hope that he lived a short life. As we were getting ready to shower the rain began to pour again, but at least this time we had shelter. As Corn and a local villageman prepared our dinner, we began showering one by one in the primitive cleansing room. In the thatched shack, rainwater trickled in through a small pipe and filled an enormous barrel. Inside the water barrel floated a handled bucket which served as the shower head. So in other words, our shower consisted of pouring rain water over our head. To no dismay, the toilets were just as basic. After feeling clean (somewhat) and revived, we waited for dinner to be served. As it was cooking, Corn brought out a local appetizer, bamboo worms, and asked if anyone would
like to try some. Undoubtebly, Mike stuck his hand in the bowl and grabbed a handful. After chewing on a few, he said that they weren't too bad. Shortly then after, dinner was served and we were presented curry, a tofu dish and a vegetable dish. It was delicious and went quickly, for we were all starving. When dinner was over Corn and all of us sat around the table, played Jenga and told stories. It was a great night. Exhausted, we went to bed in our essentially outdoor, straw dorm room and slept like babies as it stormed throughout the night.
We arose early the next morning, ate a traditional Thai breakfast of noodle soup and began our day's journey through the lush jungle. Thankfully, the clouds had parted and the sky was clear and a magnificent hue of blue. We began walking through enormous blooming plantations of rice. The scenery was unreal. We were the only people in sight, spare a local now and then, and were surrounded by a sea of luxuriant flora. We trekked through this immaculate environment for a good time before we stopped at a tiny village where we were greeted by four
elephants. Three of the large elephants were waiting to be ridden with makeshift saddles on their backs. The fourth elephant was a baby, only a year old, and walked by his mom's side as we rode through the jungle. We climbed aboard the massive creature and began our journey. In the beginning, the bumpy and swaying ride was surreal as we waded through streams and scaled up the slopes of the the mountains. What an amazing experience. However, the trip quickly turned downhill when the local trainers relentlessly beat the submissive gentle creatures. At one point, our elephant trainer jumped off Elle's (our nickname for her) head and hooked a metal earpiece around her ear. This leash then attached to the tail of the elephant in front of us. As we waded up stream, we could see the metal digging and cutting into Elle's ear. She was definitely bothered and feeling pain from the contraption and kept raising her trunk and trying to take it off. On the third attempt, Elle successfully unhooked the painful leash and dropped it in the water. Shortly after, the end from the leading elephant fell off and the leash fell into the stream. The
two of us noticed, but weren't sure if we should say anything since we had a pretty good idea of the repercussions. Half-heartedly, we tried to tell the trainer behind us that the leash lay in the water, but he didn't understand us so we gladly let it go. The horror began a few minutes later when our evil trainer came back and immediately noticed that the leash was missing. He began to beat Elle mercilessly with a bamboo stick. As we sat atop her, he broke his bamboo bludgeon over her head. Meghan screamed out and told the man to stop. After that last whack, he jumped back onto Elle's head and continued to hit her for the remainder of the walk. With every hit, Meghan yelled at the man but he only ignored her pleads. Thankfully, the ride was over shortly after. What started out to be an amazing and unique adventure, quickly turned into an obvious and disturbing display of animal cruelty. The sad thing is that in these poverty stricken countries, they don't know how to treat their animals (sources of income) any better. Upset and bit shooken up, we continued by foot on our trek.
We hiked up and down mountains, through more rice fields and through the astonishing surroundings. After a peaceful but strenuous two hour trek, we stopped at another village for some lunch. Once again, Corn prepared a delicious lunch that we scarfed down. A much needed hour break was taken and then we began the final hike of the day. We walked for a comparitively short period of time before we came upon a magnificent waterfall. Voluminous amounts of white water cascaded down shiny black rocks all encompassed by palm trees, ferns and green vegetation. The cool mist was enticingly refreshing and rejuvenating from the hot and humid day. We carefully climbed down the slippery rocks and arrived at the bottom of the rushing water. After some great pictures, we opted to forgoe hiking back up the rocks and taking the long way around. Rather, we decided to take a short cut and wade through the semi-shallow pool to the otherside. Corn went first, showing us that at it's deepest, the water went no higher than his stomach. No problem, he was as tall as Meghan and we could easily do it. Mike went first, taking our digital camera, since he
could easily keep it above water. Meghan followed, and as she stepped from one rock to the next, she slipped and dunked her backpack into the water. Thankfully, she didn't have the digital. Only one problem, her backpack had Mike's 35mm camera and assorted lenses in it. Whoops. Panic strucken, she ran through the water to the otherside and quickly took the camera out. Thanks to our trusty NorthFace backpack, the camera and everything else was dry. Phew. Dripping wet, we walked a short twenty minutes to our new campsite, which was situated amazingly at the base of another spectacular waterfall. We immediately put our suits on and jumped into the natural pool. We swam in the refreshing flowing water and Mike and Corn, as the daredevils of the bunch, climbed up the rocks to the base of the waterfall and dove off the rocks. Once again, unreal. Here we were in the middle of a jungle in Thailand and swimming in an isolated waterfall. It was so beautiful and amazing. After a good swim, we used the pool as our shower and got ready for dinner. We ate another scrumptous dinner and played card games until we could no
longer keep our eyes open. We fell asleep to the lullaby of the rushing water and the peaceful sounds of nature.
Woken by the morning songs of birds and running water, we ate breakfast and prepared for the the final day of trekking. As we exited our open-aired bungalow, Mike spotted an enormous cross spider located on the wall directly outside our bed. It was huge. On a side note, we saw a plethora of gargantuan spiders throughout our trek and took photos of all of them. Back to the story. We parted ways with the beautiful waterfall and headed out. We began our hike by trekking up a steep and dense mountain. It didn't seem like we were on, or anywhere near, a trail but Corn assured us he knew where we were going. We climbed over roaming tree vines, under intense canopies, through thick vegetation and in zig-zag patterns through the jungle. After another two hour trek through an array of natural paths, we broke out of the jungle and walked into the picturesque countryside. Here we were greeted by our sawrang and jumped in. It took us to a nearby river where we would go bamboo
rafting. We got out of our transportation and were greeted by a dozen locals who would take us down the river. Two of them brought us down to the water's edge and showed us our rafts. Hah. These bamboo sticks were hardly rafts. The rafts consisted of about ten bamboo shoots across, enough for two people to sit across, and were fairly long, about fifteen feet. The bamboo was all tied together by ropes and the so-called raft barely floated. These simplistic rafts gave us a good laugh and made us think of Huckleberry Finn. One local, who would be our poler/steerer, told Meghan and one of the Dutch girls to sit in the middle. They carefully walked onto the unsteady raft and sat down. The boat held somewhat afloat and only drenched their bottoms as they sat. Mike was given a long bamboo pole and was told to stand at the back and help navigate down the river. And then we were off. For an hour, we cruised down the river, rushed through some small rapids and enjoyed the plush green surroundings. Mike managed to not fall off and the girls only got a bit wet and we had
a blast. With smiles on our faces, we jumped back into the sawrang and departed back to the city of Chiang Mai. We loved every minute of our trek and were completely satisfied. We really felt at one with the local people and nature and relished the breathtakingly beautiful scenery. Once we reached the city, we were dropped off at our hotel and said goodbye to everyone.
Upon advice from the Dutch girls, we signed up for a Thai cooking class at the Pad Thai Cooking School for the following morning. For all of you who don't know, Meghan isn't exactly a whiz in the kitchen, or for that matter, rarely steps foot into one. So we were both anxious to see how she would perform.
We were picked up by another sawrang the next morning, but this time in pursuit of the culinary world. After about 16 passengers were picked up, we headed to an open-air market. When we arrived we were greeted by our teacher for the day, an addorable 30 year old woman who preferred that we call her "sexy". With an enormous smile always covering her face, she led us through the local market.
We first stopped at a vegetable stall where she knowingly told us about different kinds of gingers, chillies, basil and other Thai variations of vegetables. We smelled each ingredient and were told of each individual use and the aromas they would emit. She then took us to a coconut stand where she explained how important the use of coconut is in Thai cuisine. "Sexy" also showed us several different ways to cut, chop and shred the coconut in order to create the intended flavor. We were then free to walk around the market and see what else it had to offer. We saw a woman butcher slicing apart chickens and pigs with vicious cuts, tropical fruits of every sort and live fish swimming in buckets of water, waiting to be fried. After a good hour in the market, it was time to go to the classroom and begin the day's lesson. We arrived at a house in the middle of a local neighborhood and went inside. There were several stations set up in the fairly large room. From the left end, there were a multitude of gas stoves set up with large woks. Next to that was a long wooden
table with stools, that would soon serve as our prep table. To the right of the prep table was a short table surrounded by cushions on the floor. We were instructed to sit on the floor at the table, put on our given apron and prepare ourselves for a fun and exciting day of cooking. We all then moved to the prep table where we each had a tray full of ingredients. Sexy, who everytime we took a picture said "one, two, sexy" as she flashed a peace sign, began making jokes and eased us into the cooking process. The first dish we would be making would be Pad Thai, one of Thailand's infamous noodle dishes. It is a basic dish that includes glass noodles, egg, scallions, bean sprouts and a few other ingredients. After we chopped, diced and gathered all of the components we headed to the cooking stations. First, as an example, she easily whipped up a plate of Pad Thai in no time. Now it was our turn. We put the first few ingredients in the spitting hot wok and began the easy dish. Next it was time to separate the noodles while we cracked open the
egg and cooked it. This seemed easy enough. Mike did it with no problems. As Meghan attempted, she got extremely frustrated because she couldn't hold the pot at the 90 degree angle with her left hand, partition the noodles on one side and break and scramble the egg all at one time. After nearly throwing the thing down, Mike quickly jumped in to help. Discouraged, Meghan finished the dish and was not too happy that she had to continue cook the entire remainder of the day. We both ate our Pad Thai and to our pleasure, especially Meghan's, it tasted great. After eating our first meal, we went back to the prep table where another tray full of fixings awaited us. This time, we would be making Spring Rolls, another one of Thailand's award winning dishes. Sexy, cleverly and entertainingly, showed us how to roll the rice paper around the vegetarian fillings and showed us how to seal the delicious things up. Both of us did a great job at rolling and filling our spring rolls. After Sexy told Meghan that hers were great, she regained her confidence and was ready to keep cooking. Instead of wasting our time individually
deep frying the rolls, one of the helpers did it for us as we prepared our next dishes. This time we were to make two dishes at once: Tom Yum Soup (a spicy prawn soup) and Chicken and Garlic Stir-fry. We prepared all of the ingredients like before and went over to our cooking stations. First, we started with the soup. It was a cinch to make, even for Meghan. Then it came time to make the stir-fry. Sexy demonstrated the flame throwing process and then told us it was our turn, but that we could only do it one at a time. This heat emmiting process first began by heating up the oil in the wok. Then, on the count of three, we were to pour in the first liquid (we can't remember what it was right now) and hold the wok at a 45 degree angle, away from us. The second that the liquid hit the pot, a massive fireball exploded from out of the pan. It was then necessary to quickly dump the chicken in, which would ceased the flame. Mike went first and masterly created a flaming wok, put out the fire and cooked the rest
of his stir-fry. Then it was Meghan's turn. A bit timid, she stood as far from the wok as she possibly could and while barely looking, poured in the liquid. The fire flamed up and she quickly poured her chicken in. Phew, she did it without burning her eyebrows off. When we were finished cooking the stir-fry, we all returned to the table and indulged in our scrumptous dishes, including our now ready spring rolls. After a much needed break from eating/cooking, we began our fifth dish of the day, Green Curry. The both of us love curry and Meghan may actually be addicted to it, so we were really excited to learn how to make this one. We prepped our veggies, chicken and chillies and then, like pros, cooked our curry in a flash. We then sat down and enjoyed the incredible dish we had just made. It was so good! We were really proud. At around three o'clock and for the last meal of the day, we split up into two groups and made desserts. Meghan made Coconut Fried Bananas and Mike made Sweet Sticky Rice with Mango. They were both so good, but we were really too
stuffed to enjoy them. At this point, the class was over. We were sad to leave Sexy, she was extremely witty, funny and entertaining, but were exhausted from a day slaving in the kitchen. On the way home, we had to be dropped off a block from our hotel because the Sunday Night Market blocked the streets surrounding our hotel. The sight of thousands of tents in the street instantly rejuvenated Meghan and she was quickly ready to shop. Mike, willingly, came along. The market was amazing, from both of our perspectives. It was enourmous and completely packed with people. The crazy thing about it was that it wasn't a once in a while market that people waited for, it happened every Sunday night and people crowded the streets each week. Unlike most of the markets we have encountered in our travels, the people meandering through the market were mostly locals. Every now and then we would see a tourist, but Thai families, kids, teenagers and adults were out enjoying their Sunday night. The market had a wide array of products: fresh fruit, paintings, souvenirs, candles, clothes, soaps and everything else under the beautiful warm Thai night. We walked and
Rolling Up Spring Rolls
She said to roll them like a joint, but we didn't know what she meant.shopped for a couple of hours and then, finally decided that we had spent enough money and were tired. We walked back to our hotel and after a great and memorable day, went to bed.
We woke up early the next morning, said goodbye to wonderful Chiang Mai and boarded a plane heading to Phuket, for a few weeks of island hopping.
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Dana Taylor
non-member comment
Amazing!!
Meg, this is fantastic. I can't believe you're STILL trekking the globe. Hope you're having such a fantastic time. Thank you for for the TravelBlog and letting us all escape reality and live vicariously through you. Stop in NYC on your way back =)