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Published: November 21st 2011
Right I am not going to bore you with every little detail of our trip, most people get hooked to things like big brother because you get to see all the best bits, you can imagine watching 24 hours of a show (BORING) but when you take all the best bits and this 24 hours now becomes 1 hour you have something that people will be interested in. I am now updating my blog and it’s the 19th at 14:55pm, its 5 to 6am just now for the people that are trying to work that out.
We arrived at out hotel, now for £6.00 a night, you can’t really complain at anything and to be truthful with you there is nothing really to complain about, the people were fantastic as soon as we entered we were greeted “our home is your home”. Fine was the lady of the house, I don’t know is that is the correct spelling of her name but the way she asked me to remember it is “how are you, Fine that’s my name”. It’s great when someone does that, as I am shit with names to the point everyone becomes pal, so if you are reading
D's not
hahahahathis and I don’t call you by your name and call you pal I’m sorry but what you going do I’m half way round the world .
The first couple of days were all about getting rest and just finding our feet as we are only booked in this hotel for 2 nights. Fine gave us a map and advised where we were and where everything else was, this was a massive help as again not everyone spoke Scottish. D and I decided we wanted to go for a walk and with map in hand went out to see what Chiang Mai had to offer. The main part of the city was a bit of a walk but we fancied it so 25 minutes later we were coming up for the main part, if you can imagine a square and inside that square you have the main part of Chiang Mia each side has a gate north, south, east and yes you have guessed it - west. The main strip was just off the east side of the square we lived at the north.
Skipping to the night bizarre other whys known as the night market everyone comes out and
sets up streets with stalls that sell everything from people cutting up bars of soap into flowers to hats, clothes, knifes and yes guns. This place is nuts, this happens every single night it’s like a massive out door farm foods nearly everything is A POUND, well after you bargain with them as you later find out. First item I purchased was a vest, I am telling you, you need it t-shirts are no good here, 18 degress first thing in the morning. I’m standing with my t-shirt and shorts still sweating and people are wearing hats scarfs looking at me like I’m some sort of freak. Same as HKG 300Batt no 100batt and so on, I found this really hard to do here as in our money you are getting really good stuff and they are asking for 3 pound and you’re like no 1 pound its hard but you soon get used to it.
Our second day in I wanted to get one of these massages I was really wanting my neck and shoulders done and D wanted her feet done but D didn’t want to get her feet done unless I got my hobbit feet done after
standing out the shop and saying “I don’t want anyone touching my feet” “well I’m not wanting mine done either” I just gave up and said “FINE” so we went in and you get sitting down on a chair we were both sitting next to each other, I looked around and everyone else was lying back relaxed or snoring. Two people came out with wash basins some pointing happened as I was taking off my shoes, D had hers off in a shot and before you know it she was getting her feet washed and getting ready to relax, me on the other hand took my deformed hobbit feet out raging and sat them up on the stool waiting on the girl to come out, meanwhile D laughed at me as she didn’t think I felt uncomfortable enough. The woman came out and I swear looked at my feet spoke in Thai at D’s lady and laughed, D swears they were not laughing at me, but I know they were. It was 30 minutes of my life that I will never get back I actually sat with my arms folded watching the girls face trying to wrestle with my BIG
toe.
After more shopping and seeing my pipe I bought in HKG for £19.99 selling here for £130.00 we were happy enough to head home. The next day we ended up booking some funs things to do for Thursday and Friday in the week so we just laid back relaxed and took in more sites and because we decided to stay longer we had to book more than 2 days, the hotel we were in was fully booked which was a shame as I really liked the people there. We jumped onto the world wide web and onto agoda, this website has been amazing for booking hotels, if travelling I advise you don’t leave things till your there, book but book in advance even if its 3 days and you can always extend it from there (great savings).
The new hotel is better its more central for us and a 5 minute walk down the road and you’re in the heart of it all, shopping, pubs the lot. I bumped into someone I worked with many years ago I could not believe it, it really is a small world after all Ronald, I introduced D but not much was said
bigger than i thought
and she was the wee yin he had his hair still that crazy colour of red and he was always one for wearing makeup, don’t get me wrong I was impressed with the Thai that he had picked up we could not stay for long as he was working, D got a quick photo with him after teaching her how to say hello and we were off.
The next day we set off for something to eat now there is a little place just down the road so we went there, the price was good and D liked the look of it, orders in “can’t wait for my sausages and egg” D ordered bacon and scrambled egg “I can’t get over how cheap this place is, think we will be coming here from now on” breakfast was served the toast was just right the eggs AMAZING, the sausages were half the size of my pinkie (see photo). I had to order more food so I went for pancake yes and syrup “mmmmmmmmm sounds great” now this pancake was no ordinary pancake it had a filling in the middle of banana, I launch some jam on it as well and OMG don’t knock it until you try
love this pic
one for the wall for yourself (recipes to follow).
Thursday came “dun dun dunnnnnnnn” yes it was time to fly like a gibbon, if you are wondering what a gibbon is then look it up. We went down stairs nice and early as we were getting picked up between 6.00am / 6.30am, well I say we, I went down and waited< D came down just in time. I was expecting a bus to come but there was no sign of it, “there’s Suike just went past on a moped” Suike is the person that we booked the tour with from our last hotel “ no it can’t be” “Michael” right enough it was him, I went out and he was like “come on we need to go” D looked at me and said am I going first or you, Suike laughed, “what all three of us” again Suike laughed “yes, let’s go” so to paint this picture it was Suike, D then me on a 75cc moped, it was like a scene out of dumb and dumber. 20 minutes later we were back at the hotel. The bus came and picked us up, It was about an hour’s drive away into the deep dark
cuddle time
hard to touch jungle D was looking great as usual; we arrived at the start to get our equipment there was only 6 of us that was on the tour which was much better as you usually have at least 10 in each group. We went back on the bus and headed towards the jungle. When driving on our way up our main tour guide’s name was Burd, he ran through the safety training which consisted of Burd shouting back at us “Number one ok number 1 don’t hold onto wire that’s the wire or your fingers will be chopped off, chopped off. Number two, ok, don’t let anyone touch the equipment except us, ok and number three, don’t fall.”
That was our training. If this was back in the UK we would have needed to go for a 3 week training course with the first two weeks consisting of team building, this just goes to show how different things are technically just round the other side of where we stay. We got off the bus and had to hike first up a long dirt trek and then into forest to reach the top this was fun and reminded me of Ben Nevis,
I was last to go with D just in front, the first zip wire was not too bad to start with, thumbs up and she was off standing on a tree platform about 100 yards or so on the other side. My turn 1,2,3 yassssssssss. This was excellent as we went on getting longer and longer flying together, doing the superman with it attached to your back having to catch a net and pull yourself up on, abseiling, wonky bridges the lot, one thing after another this day was great, the only bad thing about the full day well two was D went over one of the wonky bridges first and waited till I was half way across and began to shake it up and down left to right, I was screaming like a bitch, it was rather scary! The second thing is that by the end of the trip you do have what is known as Hydrocupasack otherwise named Blue balls.
After flying like a gibbon you would think that would be enough for the one day but we we had a quick beer and gave our equipment back and off in the bus again we got dropped off
and hiked again up this long step slope, there was water at the bottom and as you got higher and higher you could see this beautiful waterfall we stayed up there with the other two couples and took in the sites after some photos we all decided that we were starting to feel a bit hungry so we quickly came down the hill was greeted by a wee old woman with hot towels for us and a herbal drink, this was rather nice. Back to the main office and we got given our meal voucher, this was the never ending meal as soon as you finished what you had on your plate they came with more we actually had to stop them at one point as we were all full up. It was proper Thailand food, everything that we have had made for us has always been fantastic.
We had learned our lesson from that morning and requested the next person that picks us up does it from our new hotel and let it be a car. Again we were up early bells and off this time to ride an elephant. We were both proper excited as I don’t think
absailing
All the way I have ever seen an elephant when I think of it, sure I have been to a zoo but it’s always the same at a zoo, all the animals you are choking to see are always not there it’s just one big empty cage. It was another hours drive, all of a sudden we stopped and some random came to the back of the van were about 7 of us were trying to make conversation, which it hard when you have 3 French, 2 Scottish, 1 Irish and 1 Australian. “what’s going on” he asked me “Fuck knows mate” “No, how are you, I’m Woody your tour guide. We have problem, overheat” So while they cooled the van down we had a bit of time to really talk without the noise of the wind, before you could say “To Bombay A travelling circus came They brought an intelegent elephant and Nellie was her name. One dark night, she slipt her iron chain, and of she ran, to Hindustan and was never seen again oooooooooooooooooo... Nellie the elephant pack her trunk and ,said goodbye to the circus of she road with a trumety trump trump trump trump.
Nellie the elephant packed
her trunk and trumbled of to the jungle of she road with a thrumety trump trump trump trump. Night by night she danced to the circus band, When Nellie was leading the big parade she looked so proud and grand, No more tricks for Nellie to performe, They taught her how to take a bow and she tooked to crowd by storm oooooooooooooooooo... Nellie the elephant pack her trunk and said goodbye to the circus of she road with a trumety trump trump trump trump. Nellie the elephant packed her trunk and trumbled of to the jungle of she road with a thrumety trump trump trump trump. The head of the heard was calling far far away they meet one night in silver light
on the road to Mandaley oooooooooooooooooo... Nellie the elephant pack her trunk and said goodbye to the circus, of she road with a trumety trump trump trump trump Nellie the elephant packed her trunk and trumbled of to the jungle of she road with a thrumety trump trump trump trump” we were off.
I got there without dying and got sat down with Woody, He gave us a run through of the animals history and also
long way down
nearly did fall as well (video to prove it) how they were trained and said these animals are like brothers and sisters to him, the do this for them and not for money, the last time they had to hurt one of the animals was about 18 years ago for being bad as there is a big difference between being naughty and bad. We had to learn how to command the elephants and the only way of doing this is by speaking Thai.
We had 10 minutes to learn this leg up, higher, back, forward, left, right and most important stop which in order is how they are written Yo ka, Soun, doy, bye, si, Kwa, Yout. We got taken down and had to first learn to feed the elephants we grabbed a bunch of bananas and started, Bon zoo (open mouth) this was mental, after feeding them we had to mount them and just do a quick run through of the commands to make sure me had got it, as the last thing you are wanting is to be shouting YOLT for stop and its Yout. (Which I done, damm Scottish language). We got given an elephant was pregnant almost 18 months, the average elephant is up the
our team
so is D duff for 22 months sometimes 24 months. We had to connect with the animals before we could ride them, so we had to get a massive nookie off them which were fun. Next thing you know I have D behind me and we are going through the forest on the back of a pregnant elephant singing, I the king of the swingers. This seemed unreal, everything was going great until our ride decided to full up and grab a massive tree from the side and try to rip it out of the ground being the driver and man I screamed like a little girl YOLT, YOLT nothing happened, D “its Yout” so I shouted “YOUT” and you will never guess it stopped. After our trek up D was the driver on the way back down, through the water, down the hills everything. Elephants sweat out there toes so like any form of transport after you take it for a ride you have to wash it, right? So that’s what we had to do actually jump in the water with a brush head and wash our ride. This was unreal.
I turned to one of the tour people nipple deep in
BURD
from bondi beach water and said “is there no chance of getting leaches in here” “no leaches don’t like shit” So word of advice if your ever in a situation where your nipple deep in water and you’re going to get the life sucked out of you by leaches, simply shit yourself, always like to help (wink).
After all that we jumped back on our nice clean rides and went over to another part where there was a massive pool of the same water as before, D was the driver once again. One of the tour guides jumped up in between us before we went in the water. As we went in you just seen the full elephant go under, D’s face was a picture as she was then taken under the water with just her chin above, “ I think our elephant is stuck” panic struck her face “No really, I think its stuck” with the guide laughing and then next thing we were back up in the air she just went for swim, this continued up and down with D’s face getting funnier and funnier “ Don’t let that poo come anywhere near me” so the tour guide not understanding Scottish
more treking
from france picked up a massive piece and presented it to D “get it away ewwww” I nearly fell off with laughing about 5 times.
After we had our fun including a water fight with the animals which they won, we got a group photo and then had to say our goodbyes to them but not after they wrapped there truck around you and lifted you up like a feather, “BYE” we all shouted with a quick response of “OOHAAA RHHAAAA” which was a goodbye from the elephant.
We got washed down and laughed together, after we had dried off a bit we were off home and in just for a relaxing night.
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