Trekking in Chiang Mai

Decent Internet connections are not one of South East Asia's strong points so apologies for the delay in this one. From Bangkok we went north to Chiang Mai. It's quite a nice little town, although very touristy. After some of our recent very questionable tours we sought out a recommended eco-tour. We ended up booking through the eagle house hostel on one of their private tours, as the guide was actually living with the tribe we were to stay with. In Chiang Mai we checked out a number of temples, well we had to really as you couldn't walk five minutes without passing one! There were a few notable but the best temple we visited was Wat Chieng Man which had some really cool elephant sculptures outside.

There were just 6 people on our tour- three Irish and three German. Our first day consisted of several hours driving, elephant trekking and a couple of hours walking through monsoon rains. Elephant trekking was by far the highlight of the day. Myself and Luke's elephant was more concerned with eating than trekking, so we were more than surprised when the elephant was a faced with a nice gentle path uphill or a steep incline, it chose the tough one. Luke and I only barely manged to stay on the elephant. The first day also saw our transport stuck in the mud, and we had to abandon the vehicle. Our guide said it wasn't that far from where we had originally planned to walk from but he also power walked for 3 and a half hours so we'd reach the village before dark so I'm not convinced on that one. The walk was quite tiring, given the pace, but the scenery was fantastic- Padi fields galore.

We stayed with the Karen Tribe. I've heard lots of stories of hill tribe visits where the tribes are all watching satellite tv keeping up the pretence for the tourists but this was nothing of the sort. The accommodation was basic (good oul shower out of a bucket) but we were made feel very welcome and the food was fantastic.

The following day our tour group was down two people as the German couple fell ill during the night so were to return to Chiang Mai. Not an easy decision I'd imagine- a 2 hour motorbike ride to pick up a public bus which took 3 hours. This set us back in our itinerary so we had another intensive walk through the jungle. Unfortunately Rory also started to feel unwell so he had a tough time on the walk. We were all relieved to make camp that night. Just before we did the guide and porter began chopping up bamboo which later turned up on our dinner plates! The camp was a 75 year old man's home, where he lived on his own in the jungle. He had no English but seemed to find us very amusing all the same and sat down at the table and laughed at everything we were saying!

On the last morning Luke fulfilled his dream of eating chilli for breakfast and then we hopped on a bamboo raft made that morning, bags and all. Despite getting soaked, It was a very relaxing end to our trek. Once back in Chiang Mai, we had a re-cooperation day. Then after 11 months travelling we said a sad goodbye to Mr. Draper who will be winging his way home very shortly, and we headed off on a non-jet plane to Laos.

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