jungle, temples and long bus trips.

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Chiang mai is such a nice place. I love the weekend market, they have so much stuff for sale, most of it hand-made. Everywhere there's people singin and performing. Really good atmosphere.On the day we erented a scooter, we set out a bit too late, so when we arived at mt. phusi/doi suthep temple, there were so many tourists, it was not funny.
I believe they should at least forbid the big tourist busses to go up the hill.
What a waste of fuel driving those monsters up a hill.....!
After this we drove about 60 km's along the highway to doi inthanon nat.park, where we were expected to pay 400 baht entrance fee.
Since we had come all this way, we agreed, but unfortunately there was only time for one waterfall. It was a very nice one though, and we did some splashing around aswell.
Arrived back in chiang mai at dusk, with traffic at a maximum.....an adventure in itself.

We booked a 3 day trekking from chiang mai, since we didn't want to travel further up north to pai or chiang rai, so we ended up in a group with another dutch couple and 4 israelis.
By sangthaew it took only 2 hrs, of wich halfway we stopped to buy groceries at a market.
On the market there were about 10! lady's trying to sell us knitted waterbottle holders, usefull for the trekking, as they pointed out to us.
The first day we hiked for about 3 hrs or so before arriving in a lahu hilltribe village. This village included tv's, satelite dishes, scooters and the lot, but amazing views though.
The evening was spend playing guitar, singing and merry making.
Jungleboy, the selfcalled guide, himself from a lahuvillage, made a drum out of a cardboard box and a coke can, very ingenious. The red curry was very good , by the way.

The next day we walked another 3 hrs to a village for lunch, plus an hour to our next
accomodation. A clearing in the forest with maybe 10 little bamboo thatched huts and a waterfall was going to be our home this night.
What a lovely spot. There were some local kids splashing around at the waterfall, really cool.
That night we played a drinking game, wich resulted in some of us drinking a bit too much.
Shame on us. (but good for the lahu-wallet) Good fun though.

The last day include some more walking, a short but steep elephant ride, "wild" water rafting, and a calm bamboo "float" along the river.
A good time to talk and reflect on the days past.
Back in chiang mai we said goodbye with a meal and some more beers. So dutch & israelis; Thanks for the good times, we really liked it.
With a slight hangover, we barely made it on time for the bus to take us to bangkok.

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Photos

waterfall
doi inthanon nat.park

Comments

[Beata and Tomek]

beautiful ;-)