Advertisement
Published: September 12th 2011
Edit Blog Post
We arrived in Chiang Mai on Thursday 8th Sept after a 16 hour train journey from Bangkok, luckily it was a sleeper train so we had beds but the air con was on full blast so it was FREEZING!! The views when waking up were worth the long hours, beautiful green rice fields and the jungle!
Once off the train we found a nice little hotel with a swimming pool called Chiang Mai Thai House. The staff are great and once we sorted our room we booked a few activities, Jungle Trekking and tickets for a Thai boxing match!
That evening we went to the Thai boxing where we were greeted by a ladyboy! We then spent the rest of the evening guessing who were the ladyboys and who were genuine women! The first fight were two 11 year old boys, one of them knocked the other out in the 1st round! Definitely wouldn't get that in England! Then they had a round called 'special fights' where 5 Thai men from the crowd were blind folded and basically just had to hit the crap out of each other! very funny!
The following day we visited Tiger Kingdom! Where the Tigers are
hand reared and well trained. There were rumours that they were drugged but they seemed happy enough and playful! We first met the baby tigers who were 3 months old and so cute we wanted to bring one of them home with us! We then moved onto the adult tigers! That was a little more frightening! We couldn't quite believe we were stepping into a cage with fully grown tigers! They we're so friendly though and the staff were great with the tigers! It was an unforgettable moment and we've got some amazing photos! Chris of course had brought his united shirt with him and he wore it that day, the staff were loving it and started singing "Glory Glory Man United" to him! Which Natalie wasn't too pleased about! They love United over here!
Saturday 10th - We had an early start as it was Jungle Trekking time!! Which was a very surreal experience! We were picked up from the hotel at 10am and made our way to our first stop, Elephant trekking. We met two girls who were in our group for the trip, Morgan who was from France and Sam from Holland they were both travelling on
their own but they were lovely and it was great getting to know them! Elephant trekking wasn't quite what we expected, and we had the disobedient elephant who was very hungry and stormed into the farmers rice fields and ate the rice! Going uphill on an elephant is bad but going down hill is petrifying! We were holding on for our lives. But it was great feeding the elephant banana's at the end of the trek and being so close to such a huge animal.
We then had lunch which was Elephant egg fried rice which surprisingly wasn't too bad and then made our way into the Jungle for the 2 hour trek! Of course the heavens opened as soon as we started but it was nice and refreshing! They definitely do rain better than England! The trek was hard work uphill all the way and with the mud and rain it made it even more difficult. During the trek we saw some bright blue spiders, thousands of ants and termites but no snakes.
When we arrived at our bed for the night we were a little taken back at first as the rooms were very basic. A wooden house
with a thin matress and a mosquito net. No electricity, running water and the toilet was sort of a squat hole, if you wanted to label it.
For a while we were sat with the rest of our group but because a couple from Holland joined the group later on, the Dutch were chatting away together and Morgan the french girl went to take pictures. After a while our tour guide, Neo, started to play his guitar. We went to have a look and to see if we could sit with them whilst Neo played and the locals cooked our tea. There was a moment then when we both looked at each other and couldn't believe how surreal this was. The whole surroundings, crickets in the background, the local music (with some Enrique Iglesias, Boyzone etc.) the locals cooking our food with basic equipment and the huts around us, it was something we both won't forget.
Neo, by the way was a character to say the least. He had some Red Bull in the day and that seemed to be his secret (the Red Bull in Thailand by the way is illegal in Britain and people have told us about
having 2 or 3 in one night and being awake for days). Neo had many sayings, the favourites being "Oh My Buddha" and "No Joke, No Fun, No Fun, No Baby". Neo was a Man United fan and wore the shorts in the day but finished his outfit with a Chelsea shirt...
After our meal, we were entertained by 'Eddie Murphy' and the other locals (one of which had a city shirt on) The entertainment consisted of matchstick mind games which you will have the honour of seeing when we come back. Chris slept fine that night but Natalie not so much. She was a little afraid of the creepy crawlies.
In the morning, we had a couple of games of football tennis against the locals, which the Europeans won, of course, before heading back into the jungle. We were following Eddie Murphy that day who showed the group different plants that had unique qualities. One of which turned from green to red when rubbed, which they used for paintings and clothes. Another they used the leaves as arrows to kill monkeys and one which when ripped was like a bubble maker.
We came to a waterfall during the
trek where we got to swim and buy some jewellery from the local women. "Hello, 5 Baht!". On this day we spent our trip with the Dutch couple that arrived late last night. We went bamboo rafting before heading back to our Guest House. We were glad to get a shower and wash our clothes.
Today we are just relaxing before getting an overnight train to Bangkok, where we will fly to our next destination VIETNAM!
Remember - No joke, No Fun, No Fun, No baby!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.077s; Tpl: 0.021s; cc: 7; qc: 46; dbt: 0.0383s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1.1mb
Gareth Boyle
non-member comment
He Is Massive!
He is massive! Rather you than me!