Chiang Mai - The Golden Triangle


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October 1st 2010
Published: October 7th 2010
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Chiang Mai - City of Tigers, Giant Mekong Catfish & The Golden Triangle



Liff exhausted, Steve and I set to exploring Chiang Mai to its fullest. In a single evening we managed to explore a massive night market, watch several Muay-Thai (Thai Kickboxing) matches, get an hour long Thai massage, explore a temple with chanting monks, and watch a baby elephant do a slow pub crawl at 2 am! Oh and we chatted to several lady boys trying to pull foreigners into their road side haunt. The Muay Thai boxing ended with a Dwarf knocking out a 12 year old boy in 3 rounds - Only in Thailand!
Chiang Mai is larger than we expected and with loads to do we decided our time here needed to be spent playing with adult tigers and catching the endangered Giant Mekong Catfish. Receiving a tip from my fisherman friend Dan, I found the fishery and guide he used 3 years ago to catch one of these amazing creatures. Without delay I booked to go the next morning.

Giant Mekong Cat fishing

Rising at the crack of dawn, excited as f*ck, I climbed into the 4x4 sent to collect me and take me to Dream Lake fishery.
Only 20min out of town I soon met up with Mr Tuk Tuk, my fishing guide for the day. I was surprised when he guaranteed me 10 fish by the end of the day. As all fisherman know there is no such thing as a guaranteed fish!
Mr Tuk-Tuk a fishing guide in the area for over 20 years quickly set to rigging the Carp rod and baiting up with a mixture of old sandwiches from the 7/11 convenience store and bread crust. Flinging the large wad of bread into a specific spot it took literally 30 seconds for the float to disappear and 200m of line to be striped from the reel.
Eyes wide I picked up the rod and struck into the first of 17 fish that would be landed that day. At 19kg it took over an hour to land my first Giant Mekong Catfish. Arms shaking we netted the monster and Mr Tuk-Tuk set about teaching me the different types of catfish. This first fish was a 'real Mekong giant' harvested from the river itself. Being endangered these fish are collected and bred in captivity to try and replenish the wild stocks. However the bred fish are not true Giants as they are crossed with other catfish due to a shortage in Giant breading pairs.
The day was spent fighting fish, I was there for around 8 hours and 7 of those were spent fighting large fish. A day I will never forget.
216kg of fish were caught (Mr Tuk-Tuk refusing to fight a single one), 17 landed, and the largest was 22kgs. The largest fish in the water is over 50kg's not sure I could land a monster like that. I was snapped up twice and lost over 300m of line in the two encounters. (We were using 40kg Line- Monofilament)

If anyone is going to Chiang Mai and would like to catch a monster, Mr Tuk-Tuk can be contacted on 089 7561180 anytime of the day.

I thought that the water was easy until I realized that 4 other groups had fished all afternoon and had not caught a single fish. When I inquired about this Mr Tuk-Tuk smiled and said you are with me and only I can grantee a Giant Mekong. He is a great guide, extremely knowledgeable and hands you a cold beer Chiang while you are fighting your fish, what more can a man ask for. He is really good with a camera too and all the pictures you see on the blog are his work. For addition pics take a look at the 3rd tab when viewing the pictures below.
Completely exhausted and hands bruised from the encounters I returned to Chiang Mai in the early evening with a very big smile on my face.

Extracted from Wikipedia
'Attaining an unconfirmed length of 3 m, the Mekong giant catfish grows extremely quickly, reaching a mass of 150 to 200 kg in only six years. The largest catch recorded in Thailand since record-keeping began in 1981 was a female measuring 2.7 m (roughly 9 feet) in length and weighing 293 kg (646 lb). This specimen, caught in 2005, is widely recognized as the largest freshwater fish ever caught (although sturgeon can far exceed this size, they can be androgynous). Thai Fisheries officials stripped the fish of its eggs as part of a breeding program, intending then to release it, but the fish died in captivity and was sold as food to local villagers.'

Touching Tigers

Waking Early Liff
and I found a Tuk Tuk driver to take us the 20km out of town to the Tiger sanctuary. The sanctuary breeds the animals and is apparently the only place in the world where you can enter a cage with up to 3 adult tigers and play with them. We spent the day at the sanctuary and chose only to enter the large tiger cage. The chance to touch these amazing animals could not be missed and we spent as much time as we could with these huge cats. We both found a new respect for them when one large male found a piece of palm frond and when one of the guides tried to remove it the Tiger went mental. Growling and showing his teeth - we both broke out into an instant sweat. We were lucky enough to stroke, lie on and even play with these big cats.

While these animals are in captivity we would recommend taking up the opportunity to spend time with them. At the park you are able to see Tiger cubs a few weeks old and dozens of well looked after Tigers.
Exiting the park excited, and hearts pounding, we headed for Chiang Mai, making a short stop at a jewelry factory to see the production lines of thai silver and gem stones.

Exploring Chiang Mai's Markets of Joy

We spent 'free' time exploring the massive and all consuming markets in Chiang Mai, Night markets, food markets, Saturday and Sunday markets, Chinese markets and a few other random ones. If heading to Chiang mai try make sure your there on a weekend as this is when they are in full swing. The food is authentic, and the atmosphere is amazing. many hours were spent getting lost and found in these huge events.

Chiang Mai is a great place to spend a few days, however after 5 days of madness we could hear the hills calling us and booked our tickets to Pai. On our last night there Guy stood on a rat, one of several he was trying to dodge and injured his toe, amusing. Simone and Julia headed to Pai a few days before us and we were keen to find them in Thailand's remote north near the Burmese boarder. Time to head to to the hills.........




Additional photos below
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18th October 2010
Making friends

hello
well done with the monster fish. sitting with willem and eugene admiring the tiger and fish. miss u guys.nice chat yesterday. love dad
3rd November 2010

Booo!
Lifffyyyy (: Its been SUCH a long time since I saw you two! I miss you both you must dash home right this minute and come and see us. I hope you are both well and you are having a GREAT time. Must say, you are rubbish at the whole emailing business. Ahaha. Much Loveeee Xxxxx Almost a year mannn. Avaaaa. (:

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