Adventures in the north

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After a few fun filled days in Chiang Mai it was time to move on to a smaller town which we had been told we had to visit while we were up this way, and so with the first opportunity we booked some seats on one of the minibus's heading to Pai, only a short 3 hours’ drive away and thought this would be no problem as we have done many longer road journeys over the last five months of being away with generally only the smallest of problems....this was about to give us a rude awakening as you should never underestimate a journey by road in SE Asia!

The drive to Pia takes you through the very scenic mountains of Northern Thailand, a distance of just only 122 miles however within this there are 762 sharp turns in either direction pretty much all of the way there.....as you can imagine this does nothing to help keep your stomach settled for as soon as you have made one turn you are straight into the next being sent lurching constantly in either direction. I never get travel sick but after this even i was a bit shaky as we stopped half way there at a small restaurant by the roadside and were given 5 minutes to try and bring ourselves back to normal, Jade wasn't having much luck either and was taking whatever tablets she could find in her bag on the way and trying to sleep through the journey, which was pretty much impossible.....I’m glad to say we made it there with no one from our mini bus being sick. (We found out that in the high season you will see a mini bus stopped every few hundred metres as westerners just can't restrain themselves from bringing up that mornings breakfast!).

So after 3 hours of winding our way through the Thai mountains we eventually arrived at the small town of Pai where straight away we had the usual que of Tuk Tuk drivers waiting for us all trying to get us in their makeshift taxis, we ended up with a crazy looking man who only had one foot, and so we set of on our next adventure to see if he could get us there, which he did after a very bumpy ride and we found ourselves at a small guesthouse just outside of the main town which had some stunning views of the mountains and the small town a little further on.

We had decided to stay in Pai for the next 3 nights, and ended up not doing very much over these next few days as the last few weeks started to catch up with us and so we decided to just chill out in the many coffee shops, bars and restaurants in the town.

There are a few waterfalls and some good trekking opportunities if you are heading up this way but you do need to rent out a moped or similar otherwise you could end up finding yourself paying a small fortune in Tuk Tuk fares. Pai itself is more of a backpacker town with very few holiday makers around as there are just small guesthouses and mainly bars which give a really good night life in the town, we ended up here right at the end of the low season and it was still very quiet so that itself gave the place more of a chill out vibe. Aswel if you have been away from home for a while there are plenty of small restaurants which serve amazing western food, (it’s like they're all competing with each other) we found one such place which was run by a Thai family.......and I’m sure they must have been British in a former life.......they had proper sausages!!! Not the normal hotdog style sausages you find in most places in Asia but proper Cumberland sausages! I was as shocked as the next backpacker who came in and was amazed with what i was eating and couldn't find the time to answer his questions of "are they real sausages?" and so Jade found herself having to answer them for me, i was very happy with this and so got my fair share of Full English Breakfasts while we was here, but there are plenty of other places to grab some great food, Asian aswel if you want to stay with eating the local dishes.

After a few days of doing not very much, we decided to go back down to Chiang Mai (which you pretty much have to pass through if you are travelling on to anywhere else) and decided to stay for a couple more days. We had found an elephant sanctuary (Baan Chang Elephant Park) which is just outside of the town, where you can go and stay for a few days and help look after some rescued elephants with the elephant guides themselves. This is something we had wanted to do for a while but were never sure as there are so many camps around Chiang Mai, and other parts of Thailand, who claim to really look after the elephants just to get the tourists in....where the animals are normally beaten, chained up for days on end and forced to carry the huge wooden chairs on their backs for tourists to sit on which turns out to be very uncomfortable for the elephants. So after a bit of research we finally found this park which have rescued elephants over the last few years from such camps and invite tourists to come and see what a great job they are doing for them, it works out a little bit pricey at nearly £70 a person (the money goes towards the huge amount of food the elephants eat and the upkeep of the sanctuary plus the money which they eventually save to then buy the elephants from other people who do not treat them very well).

Anyway we were picked up by the guides from our hostel which we had arrived at just the night before.......a nice little guesthouse in the centre of the old city, (Thailand Wow) at just £3 a night each to stay in the dorm which had nice comfy beds and was in general a really clean place, so well worth the money! After an hour’s drive just outside the city we arrived at the elephant park where we were given some very nice clothes to change into, a denim style shirt and trousers which seemed way too big, as we would be getting pretty dirty as we would find out at the end of the day. Then we were taken aside by one of the park guides and given a little history about the park itself and of some of the elephants which had been rescued, which included which ones we were allowed to go near and which ones we should stay well clear of! After this we were all given huge buckets of fresh bananas and sugar cane which we were all encouraged to go and feed which turned out to be an experience in itself! It felt really surreal being so close to such huge animals and they were soon all stretching out there trunks to try and grab the buckets of food from us, and soon they were taking as many bananas from us as they could fit into their mouths. There was one elephant there who had become blind over time and so can only sense and hear when somebody is close and so was constantly lifting up her trunk and opening her mouth wanting us to feed her food, which was a bit weird as my whole hand at one point nearly got taken aswel and so ended up being licked half way up my arm.

There were also plenty of baby orphans that were there aswel, of which one took a liking to jade as it lifted up its trunk and sucked her neck as she stood in front of it which i'm sure will be one of those random things she won't forget anytime soon! Next it was time to be shown how to sit on an elephant properly as the Mahouts do, which was very scary as you sit around their necks and only have your legs to try and cling on....which was quite difficult as they seemed to like to wander off in search for food every time someone got on them. I think this day, altogether will be one of those experiences neither of us will ever forget, as later on that day we also got to take them to the water where they baved and seemed to feel really relaxed as the water soon became filled with elephant pee and poo, nice!

That night we stayed in some accommodation within the park with a few other couples who were also backpacking so the night was spent eating and drinking as much as we could!

The following morning it was time to leave the sanctuary and head off for our next adventure! We were picked up early by a local trekking guide who took us out into the wilds about an hour from the camp itself and took us on a very humid trek through some jungle to a local waterfall which was pretty impressive and it was only me and Jade within the group so it made the experience just that bit better, we were then taken back to where our pickup truck was waiting before we were taken yet again further along the dirt track next to a descent sized river where we were to have our first ever white water rafting experience! Again it was just me and Jade with two local guides who put me and Jade at the front of the raft and were soon slowly making our way down the river......it wasn’t long though before we hit some pretty fast moving water and soon were being sent in all directions as we flew down the river......at times i thought it was us taking the two guides out as they seemed to get really excited with lots of screams coming from behind us. One of them, who was pretty young, began screaming we were going to die, and at one point i actually started to believe him as we seemed to move very fast towards a huge boulder which we soon hit and were sent spinning further down the river. With this Jade was sat in the bottom of the raft looking pretty dazed from it all a number of times and telling the guides a number of times that if she were to fall out they were to straight away jump in and swim after here......which they thought was very funny! Which also very nearly happened as i was about to sit back on the side of the raft before being sent crashing into Jade which in turn nearly threw her out the boat......to this i was soon met with a wave of abuses from the guides calling me a lady boy........

It turned out to be a great day though and the guides really did make it a great experience for us, Jade loved the white water rafting aswel in the end and so soon hopefully i'll be able to talk her into doing more crazy sports with me! haha.

With the last two days now over we were soon heading back to the hostel we had left a few days earlier in Chiang Mai, well and truly knackered and visiting a tribal village on the way back......it was a very small village and obviousely has a number of tourists pass through from time to time as there were around 10 different little huts all selling hand made bracelets and jewellery, that kind of thing so that was another thing to top off the last 2 days. Once back in Chiang Mai we were then soon getting ourselves ready for our coach journey the following day which was to take us to our last stop in Thailand.

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Photos

Baan Chang Elephant Park
Jade with a banana leaf hat one of the elephant guides made for her