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Published: January 24th 2006
After partying hard over the festive period I packed my life back into my wee purple bag and made the epic 26 hr journey from Ko Phan Ngan to Chang Mai via a tuk tuk, a boat, a bus, a plane and finally a taxi. Phew.
So anyway, Claire, Marianne and I arrived Chiang Mai on the 5th January and instantly fell in love with the place. The air is clear and the city surronded by mountains. The traffic is, naturally, a lot calmer than Bangkok and the people are welcoming and smiley happy.
On our first day Claire and I hired bikes and cycled around the city and out to the University of Chiang Mai grounds, later that evening all 3 of us signed up for an excellent Thai cookery course where our teacher Nooky taught us how to make Green Curry, Pad Thai, Morning Glory & Tom Yum soup (amongst other things). We were given certificates and cook books at the end. A proud day...... However, the next day I felt so ill! I couldn't face food and felt generally crap - this lasted a week and a half. I quickly posted the certificate home (before the Pad
Thai cookery school got wind of the situation and took it back.) And sent the book to my sister, won't be cooking Thai for a while....
Chiang Mai is the perfect base for tours and trekking around Northern Thailand and we found it very hard to choose between the many on offer. Finally we agreed on a trek which took us South - West of Chiang Mai and combined Elephant Trekking and Bamboo rafting with a night spent in a Hill Tribe village.
After a short bus ride our first stop was at the elephant conservation park where we rode elephants for around an hour and fed them bananas and sugarcane. Next stop was at a waterfall for lunch and swimming. I was still feeling quite ill so skipped lunch and got stuck in with the swimming. The water was freezing and the rocks incredibly slippy. Our guide, Mr P, warned us all to take care on the rocks..... After lunch most of the rest of the group joined in splashing around the base of the waterfall whilst others sunbathed on the rocks. Anyway, to cut along story short an English girl named Laura who was in our
group slipped on the rocks and hurt her back badly (we found out later that she broke her tail bone) There was no phone reception on the mountain and the tuk tuk that dropped us off was long gone. a stretcher was fashioned out of an old bit of wood and Laura was carried down the mountain and off to hospital. By the time all the drama was over it was about 4pm and so would be getting dark soon, we still had a 2 hour trek ahead of us to get to the hill tribe village and they made us do it at super speed to make up time.
That night all 15 people in the group slept on the floor of wooden hut under mosquito nets, it was great, I love camping! Earlier in the night, after tea, we sat round a campfire and the kids from the hill tribe sang us some traditional songs. The hill tribe we stayed in was one of the Karen Hill Tribes who live around the Golden Triangle and I believe originate in Burma and are now living in the Hills of Northern Thailand. That night everyone stayed out by the
fire drinking until late, except me (for once) as I still felt ropey.
The next day, we trekked a bit more which, i must admit in 30 degree mid afternoon sun, I'm not a big fan of. In the afternoon tough it was a lot better, we went Bamboo rafting down a river before returning completley exhausted to Chiang Mai. (Not too exhausted though to take advantage of the brilliant night market in Chiang Mai, never too tired to shop.)
After a few days chilling out in Chiang Mai and the surronding areas we all headed our seperate ways. Marianne headed west to Pai to photograph some Hill Tribes, Claire headed back to Bangkok to spend a few days before heading to Singapore and I headed north into Laos.
I was sad to see Marianne and Claire go, we had a brilliant time together and have a few tales to tell....
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emma fowler
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miss pirie
Hey laura, quick hello from the deen, hope you are keeping well, for some reason i thought you were in Australia by now!!! Enjoying the regular updates, keep posting. love you loads Emma F x x x