Rumble in the Jungle

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Hi All, Ah well our plan to venture as far as Laos is now in tatters. We just had too much of a good time in Chiang Mai and now can't really fit it in.
The plan was probably a bit too ambitious anyway as it was going to take a 2 day bus and boat journey to get to Laos. After our previous misadventure up the Mekong it was going to take a lot to convince us of the merits of going down the Mekong and across Laos notoriously bad roads for 2 days. I thought it might cost about $20 and take a good 8 or 10 hours on the bus. But because it is the monsoon season the roads are washed away so it takes 2 days on a boat and really bad mud tracks to get there. Actually it was going to cost 50 Euro so sorry but no thanks. It's a pity because everybody has been raving about the place. We could probably have squeezed it in but it wouldn't have been a good idea to rush through, miss the highlights and pay a huge price to do it. That would just have been a lot of effort just to get a stamp on the passport.
When we arrived in Chiang Mai Maeve was asking;
M: What is there to do in Chiang Mai?
J: I said not much really.
M: What the hell are we doing here then?
J: It's a great place.
M: Why did we pay a fortune to fly here and leave Sunny Samui if it's only a great place with nothing to do?
J: It's not so much the city, it's what you can do outside the city that's so great.
M: Like what?"
J: Elephant treking, Shopping, Quadbiking, Hiking etc. etc.
M: I'm not really a hiker, elephant treking, shopping and quadbiking we could have done in Samui and there's no beach here, is there?
J: No.
M: Well then??
J: Well then what??
M: You better have some bloody great etc's, etc'c or I'm going to be really mad!!!
J: M, M, MMMMMM, Well did I tell you about the really great shopping!!!
M: !@#^$*%(^)*_+))+(**+++&)*(*^%$#)_!!!!!!

So it's fair to say that Maeve wasn't really feeling Chiang Mai from the start. I'd been to Chiang Mai 6 years ago and had a great time and it was one place I insisted on us visiting. I did think Maeve would be a bit more upbeat about it. After trying my best to get her onboard I gave up, she was having none of it. A bit of a lovers tiff ensued which ended with me telling Maeve (politely, of course) that Koh Samui and sunny beaches was her thing and Chiang Mai was mine so she'd better get to like it. --- Silence and peace. Sometimes you've got to be cruel to be kind (i.e. get your own way, (For once)), anyway as I'm writing now before we board an overnight train to Bangkok Maeve has changed her mind and is loving Chiang Mai.
On our first full day we went for a walk around the city. Maeve was none too impressed and asked again what there was to do in Chiang Mai? I told her again it was the stuff outside the city the adventure activities that made the city great not the city itself, which is a bit plain but with a very good backpacker vibe. Our city tour stopped there and then and we went off looking for tours to do, at last I was starting to get through to her. We eventually booked a 1 day Thai cookery course and a 1 day Quad biking and White water rafting tour. So for the rest of that day we went out to a craft village which was more like an industrial estate with different factories. You basically went in they show you how they make things and then bring you into q massive shop where a member of staff hovers and accompianies you everywhere until you feel obliged to buy something, job done and then they scurry off to the new incoming (victim) customer. We saw furniture, silver, jewellery, silk and lacquare ware factories all very interesting. Maeve didn't even run screaming when she saw all the silk worms in action.

The next day we went on out Thai cookery course. It was actually quite easy to cook and very tasty, well most of it. Firstly we met our group Joyce and Erwin from Holland and Brian and Lorraine from Skib. Brian is best friends with one of Maeves work colleagues's brothers, small world. Firstly we were brought to a local market and shown all different fruits, vegs and spices. There were plenty of stuff we'd never seen before and quite a few that we'd eaten and wondered what it was. We were now enlightened, I finally figured out that I wasn't supposed to eat Lemon grass and kafka lime leaves as they were just for flavour - I appreciate Thai food much more as a result!!! Did you know that the hottest chilli is the small green or red 'Mouse Shite" Chilli and that's a fact. We had good craic cooking different dishes and hopefully we'll not have forgotten everything by the time we have a kitchen to practice in.
That night we met up with Brian and Lorraine to go for a few drinks, shopping at the night bazar and then a few more drinks. We had great craic, we all got to do some haggling and Maeve was the best getting most things without having to move from her basement starting price. I'm sorry let my half-Cavan heritage down, but I did get a greatr BMW F1 shirt for a great price so I was happy to let Maeve off. Afterwards we headed for a bar and started to have a few drinks and a good old chat about our respective travelling experiences. We got, and gave, some great tips and the drink flowed.
The next morning I realised what the waiter was talking about when he said we were drinking "very strong elephant Chang" a nice beer at 6.5%. I was drinking it like ordinary beer and most Asian beer is tame enough anyway. I was feeling my head the next morning, we didn't get much sleep and we were up early to go quad biking. I soldiered on and we had a great time. We were riding for 3 hours and covered 42kms of road, dirt track and everything in between. We were more likely to meet a herd of cows on the road than another person. Actually we met 2 herds of cows on the road, one (a group of 6 and 1 calf) were actually sitting down resting on the road as were came racing around the corner, this was their road and they weren't budging - they even managed to sit on the proper side of the road. The next herd was bigger and were just out for a bit of a stroll, and again they knew which side of the road to stick too. It was a great way to get out into the country and see how the Thai farmers live. We must have been in Cabbage Farming HQ. It was grown all around us. We were going strong until the chain on my quad broke (it hadn't seen a drop of oil in years). The guide came back to my stricken quad and quickly tried to fix it, I was thinking I'm going to be stuck here for ages. After 10 minutes the guide realised that his attempts to ressucitate the chain were in vain. He quickly jumped on his quad and dissappeared. I was thinking we're in the middle of nowhere and I was preparing myself for a good hour or more of a wait, 5 minutes later he retrurned and 5 minutes after that I was going again. Maeve was very impressive on her quad, no chickening out when it was a bit rough or slippery and dangerous, just going full out and no holding back - that's my girl!!!
That afternoon we headed on to go white river rafting. It was great craic. Because of the monsoon the river was quite full and very fast flowing, it was graded at 4 on a scale of 5. It was my first time and Maeve's second time rafting and we had a blast. We had 2 local women in our raft and to say they were anything other than absolutely useless would be a compliment. It was up to Maeve and I to keep the show on the road so we had to do all the paddling and leaning in and falling in and backwards and forwards. The 2 'passangers' would probably have been better just sitting in the raft doing nothing. I was secretly glad when one of them fell in the water. We were all (about 20 of us) shown a dvd of our efforts afterwards and the sight of her falling in got a really good laugh. So it's fair to say a good day was had by all. After our first few days of Maeve not liking Chiang Mai she changed her mind and really enjoyed herself. I think I could convince her to come back again without too much difficulty.
Anyway we're now heading to Pattaya to try our hands at scuba diving and to meet up with Louise and Pop, my cousin and her husband for a few days. We're really looking forward to a few nice days diving and catching up with the news from home.
P.S. Best of luck to Sally who's unfortunately doing crappy exams soon. She was very sympathetic of me when I was doing my crappy exams so just so you know we're thinking of you and best of luck, although you won't need it.

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Photos

Tag Team
Maeve and John Cookery School

Back Off B*tch
Maeve moves in for the kill, MY lovely Chicken and Cashew nut dish. She simply forgt to leave me any of hers and now wanted a 'taste' of mine.

Taste Test
My Fish Cakes v. Maeves Spring Rolls

Night Bazar
Maeve enjoying Chiang Mai's legendary night shopping

'Elephant Strong Beer'
I hadn't a clue what the waiter was on about. All Asian beer was tame, right! Not so, as I discovered the next morning. In the meantime we had a great night with Brian and Lorraine from Skib.

That's my Girl
Maeve demonstrated her Quad mastery all morning

Here We Go
Ready for another Wetting

Comments

[Theo]

You are just making a hell of a BLOG! It's really great and has that "every day, have a look" effect! Hang on and explain things like Chiang Mai better to Maeve next time (at the end, she's a woman)