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Published: March 23rd 2009
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7th Feb
We arrived in Chiang Mai and with very little bartering managed to get a tuk tuk to a hostel we had preciously been recommend to. Although the rooms were fine the staff were not hte most helpful bunch in the world (in fact barely even acknowledged we were there!) and so set off to explore the city with a complocated map and a little confused about where the flower festival that was taking place that day was being held.
Our first impressions were that it is an attractive city, thriving with market stalls, cafes and bars and ultimately would do nicely as a place to hang out in whilst waiting to go and do a days voluntary work at the Elephant Nature Park in 4 days time. We visited the elephant nature park office to confirm our volunteer course. It look sfantastic so really looking forwar to it. We have decided against a trek as they all involve elephnat trekking and we aren't sure they are entirely ethical. Eventually we found the the sight of the flower festival and watched some local school kids performing traditional dances and made our way around the food stalls trying some
local delicacies! The food so far in thailand has been second to none and has even inspired Seamus to do a thai cookery course.
8th Feb
We spent today having a wandering around the old part of the city and generally doing very little, but eating (again!) and taking in the local sights. We have decided to move hostel and the staff are so rude and we reckon we can get a better deal elsewhere. We have managed to find out about doing some volunteer work in the South of Thailand with a charity called fun4kids and also managed to book onto a cookery course with the Thai Farm Cookery school in 2 days time.
9th Feb
Moved hostels this morning to a much nicer place and cheaper place called Kavil Guesthouse. It is owned by a lovely family with a bong eyed pug dog called Pip Pip, which is endlessly teased by their friendly cat!. Again we generally did very little during the day (we are looking forward to doing something tomorrow!) but in the evening we stumbled upon the Sunday market which was amazing! There was so much lovely stuff (including the food!) and
all the nearby temples were lit up with fairy lights so it looked like a big festival and we finally managed to get some souveigners!
10th Feb
Had an early breakfast and made our way to the cookery school. The first stop was the food market a small way out of the city. It was great to see where everything comes from and to get a chance to discover what some of the the food items we have seen actually are! From here we drove to the schools organic farm which is out in the country. Here we were issued with a hat (which looked utterly ridiculous, but you have to get int othe spirit!) and an apron and then got taken around the garden to try some of the herbs and fruits growing there. We then got to do the cooking! Course was excellent and the instructor was great (although I still managed to put a tablespoon of salt instead of sugar into my curry...it wasn't the best!). Seamus was suprised with his culinary skills and found he can actually cook and I too was delighted as perhaps this means I might get dinner cooked for me
once in a while when we get home!
11th Feb - Woke up this morning to find a cloud of smoke coming through our window....the area we are staying in has been infested with cockroaches and they were gassing them out! We didnt realise this is what was happening until we went to eat breakfast and were joined with about 20 of the little critters scuttling across the road trying desperately to fins somewhere to get away from the smoke..They are everywhere and I have to say it puts you off your brekkie when you have to watch these revolting things being squashed by on coming mopeds to then get up again and scuttle towards the place you are eating in! Having eaten so much food the day before however neither of us were really that hungry anyway....
We explored the other side of town this morning and then spent the afternoon visiting a couple of the temples. Although they are really beautiful we are starting to get a little templed out and in the heat it can make it a little hard to be enthusiastic over yet another buddah statue (even if it is the the only
lying down one in Chiang Mai). We did get to speak to some monks though who explained some of their rituals which was interesting.
Unfortunately all the museums were closed as it was a bank holiday so I decided to try my first thai massage. It was a little uncomfortable but nice when the masseur wasn't trying to pull my head off my shoulders and fold my legs behind my head! Seamus declined for fear of snapping in half, but enjoyed snapping away whilst I was bent into unflattering positions!
12th Feb
Although expensive we decided to go to the Elephant Nature Park close to Chiang Mai for the day to do a 1 day course on learing baout the care and rehabilitation of Thailands elephants. The park itself does not use elephants for trekking or performing tricks such as standing on their heads and painting but instead concentrates on working with communities to encourage them to treat their elephants better, provide a veterinary service and rescue elephants that have been injured, orphaned or are being treating badly by loggers or treking companies with the hope of eventally releasing some of them back into the wild.
Although it was harrowing to see the reality behind the way many of the elephants in Thailand are treated it was an amazing experience! We got to feed and help bathe the eles and see the incredible work being carried out by the Parks founder Lek to help protect them from cruelty. We have decided to go back in March to volunteer for 7 days!
We leave Chiang Mai tomorrow to visit a small town in the mountains called Pai before heading into Laos.
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