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Published: November 26th 2008
Arrived in Chiang Mai on 22nd after short flight from Laos, thought it was going to be my last couple of days....but me and Jess have managed to change our flights to stay another week!!! Good job too, as we were due to be flying to Malaysia from bangkok today, and found out that bangkok airport is shut due to political protesting!!! anyway.....we went on a hilltribe trek on sunday, started with a stop at at the Longneck triabl village. All the women wear metal coils around there necks, starting from age of 15. Our guide told us that they were originally to protect them from tiger attacks, but later on they were a sign of fidelity - if a tribeswoman had cheated on her husband, the coil is removed so the whole can see what she has done!!!! Maybe we should introduce it in the UK!!! After this we headed off for a gruelling 3 hour uphill trek in the jungle, very beautiful but extremely arduous (jose ady, you would be proud of me!!!) Had a lot of stops on the way to take on some water and get our breath back!! At one of the stops, an elephant just
appeared from in the jungle!!! Totally surreal!! Finally arrived ot our hilltribe village called Luha. It was amazing, basically a large cabin on stilts, with an astounding view over the jungle we had just trekked through!! Had dinner prepared by the tribe, and were entertained by the village kids and one of the tribe men who could play guitar...he did a very up tempo version of Hotel California and Let it be!!!! We were with some really nice people in our group, 5 french and 2 canadians(on their honeymoon!!!) Went to bed fairly early as we were all shattered!! Up early - woken by the village cockerel!! Set off after brekkie, for 2 hour downhill trek, then had a really boring couple of hours......first we had to ride on an elephant and Jess fed him bananas all the way!!! We named him Harry Elefonte!!! (like the play on words!!!???) After that, we went white water rafting, totally exhillarating, and very bloody scary!!! Ended the day with a chilled out ride down to where we started, on a gentle bamboo raft....only scary bit was getting on it!! I slipped and nearly broke my ankle!!! All good in the end though!!! Got
back to hotel around 5, and hit the night market for a bit of shopping and dinner....then off to bed fior an early night!! Well deserved!!
Tuesday morning, had a bit of a lie in, then jumped in a tuk tuk to visit Tiger Kingdom. Not sure what to except, but could not have imagined it in our WILDEST DREAMS!!! We had a quick look round the place, and then had to choose which age of tigers we wanted to 'play' with!!!! We chose the new borns and the adult tigers. It was breath taking, the new borns were only 2 months old and only a little bit bigger than domestic cats!!! The big guys on the other hand....well I'll let the photos tell the story!!!! Today, we had a pretty chilled out time, went to local park to soak up some sun, and plan our next adventure....Bangko here we come!!!! Love to all, see you soon!!!!
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Karen
non-member comment
Oh Wow
I'm not sure if I'm supposed to do this or not but hey ho I'm going to write something anyway. (I wish I wasn't such a technophobe) Oh wow what an amazing experience! Thanks for sharing it with me (honest I'm not a bit jealous??!!) I'm a little concerned that despite you saying that you took minimal clothes I don't think I've seen the same outfit twice. Looking forward to the next entry already. Take care and have lots of fun! Love Karen. xxx