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Published: November 13th 2007
After a 12 hour night sleeper train journey we ( our group of 11 intrepid travellres) arrived in Chiang Mai, transfered to our hotel, and then had the whole day at our disposal to discover Chiang Mai, the city of over 100 Wats! So after a couple of hours of extensive wat-seeing during the day, our group headed to dinner at the Night Bazaar, enjoyed some more of the delicious Thai food, and browsed the stalls and vendors who are selling everything from fake birkenstock sandals to the most beautiful thai silk garments!
The next morning, after a short stop at the local market to get some supplies for our cook, we headed up into the hills in our Songthaews . A refreshing dip into the waters at the Mok Fa waterfall was just the right beginning to a great 3day trek through the ricefields and hills of northern Thailand. After a couple of hours walking we arrived at our first overnight stay in Ban-Mae-Jong, a Karen tribe village, by our hosts, washed up in the river and then enjoyed a relaxing evening around the camp fire. The next morning was another 4 hours of walking through the
most prestine forests, ricefields , jungle, you name it! Beautiful! Our lunch stop was along a river, at Huey Nam, and here we "transfered" to our next mode of transport: riding elephants through the jungle! ! What an experience! We arrived at our next village, Pa Kaho Laam in the afternoon, and walked around the village, the guys in our group played a game of soccer against a team of locals and memebers of another tourist group, and we simply enjoyed being invited to share and have a glimpse into the hilltribe live!
Since walking another 5 hours the next morning did not seem to appealing to the majority of the group 😊, we all opted to switch transport modes one more time and we now drifted down the river on bamboo rafts! . After three hours on the raft, actually going through some smaller class 1 rapids, where we nearly tipped over, we arrived at yet another lovely village for lunch, and the unfortunate end of our hilltribe experience! I could have easily kept going for another week or so! What a lovely place, people, and absolute beauty!
Back in Chiang Mai in the evening, we headed yet
to another bazaar, the Sunday Bazaar, sampled the street food and then crashed into our clean sheets in the hotel!
To complete the Chiang Mai experience (which is famous for its cuisine!) Chris, Alexis and I decided to partake in a Thai Cooking class at the Baan Hongnual Cookery School! Our teacher Boom picked us up the hotel, and after stop at the local market to shop for all the ingredients we headed a bit out of town to the school! Our first dish was the ever famous Pad Thai ( stir fried rice noodles), followed by Tom Yam Koong (sweet and sour soup with prawns northern style) , then an order of Por Piah (tofu/chicken spring rolls) , and we rounded the meal up with green Paneang Kai (Chicken Curry) over steamed rice! Delicious and so fun to make it all under the watchful eye of our funny and knowledgeable teacher!
After all that it was back on the sleeper train to Bangkok, where I am now, spending another day exploring the city before heading onwards tomorrow.
cheers and until another update from Cambodia in a few days!
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Katrin
non-member comment
Wow- Green Curry and Delicious in the same phrase?
hi there- What happened to the Steffi that did not like curry- now is fixing it and calling it delicious?? Amazing- great to know that you are enjoying the country though! Keep having fun- and take lots of pics for me in Cambodia- I wish I could be there with you!