Monk Chat, Thai Cooking & Hill Tribe Trekking

Chiang Mai (25th Oct.-31st Oct.)

Overnight sleeper train to Chiang Mai which was fairly comfortable really although you don't enjoy quality sleep.

Monk Chat

Enjoyed a session called "Monk Chat" where by young monks who are still studying spend some time with you in groups of 2 or 3 talking about their studies and religious practices. The monks are certainly open to all sorts of questions from us and also enjoyed hearing about what we did at home and where we came from. The 2 monks we spoke with were both from Laos and one of them had been a practicing monk since the age of 10. He was now 22.

Night Bazaar & Thai Massages

Fantastic shopping and great seafood curries. Many offers of a thai massage - we did succomb! I don't think I'm a big fan - too much pain. The foot massage was good though. Bern and Liz on the other hand - no pain no gain! 150 bhat for 1 hour (equivalent to AUS$5).

Thai Cooking

Completed a full day thai cooking course with the Thai Thai Cookery School. It was a fantastic day. It also included a market tour in the morning and learning about the different fruits, vegetables and spices. We sampled some fried bugs at the market - a bamboo grub and a slightly bigger worm/grub. They were crunchy and tasted salty. Let's just say that I didn't buy a whole bag of them. One was enough. I passed on sampling the large grasshopper and other large bugs with big tenticles. Did some food carving - made a rose out of the skin of a tomato. We cooked 10 different dishes and I only had to take one home because I couldn't possibly fit another thing in. We ate the whole day as we cooked each dish.

Hill Tribe Trekking (3 days)

Day 1 - Trekked through thick jungle north of Chiang Mai. Only a little bit of up! The children from the Lahu Village where we were staying the night came and entertained us in the evening with their singing and dancing.
Day 2 - Trekked to a beautiful waterfall and enjoyed lunch. Stayed the night at the elephant camp in an elevated bamboo shelter with 3 walls. We all had mozzie nets which was a good thing.
Day 3 - Watched the elephants having their morning wash in the river. The elephants clearly loved being in the water and kept submerging themselves almost completely. Enjoyed a trek on an elephant and the elepants baby followed us all the way. The elephant Bern and I were on sprayed us with dirt so we were on guard when we walked down to the water. The end of the trek finished with a short paddle down some rapids in a rubber raft and then we bamboo rafted to the finish. The bamboo raft was literally made of about 10 long pieces of bamboo all weaved together and was propelled by a thai guy using a long pole to push on the bottom of the river.

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