Advertisement
Published: November 3rd 2007
Edit Blog Post
Chiang Mai was a great city - very relaxing! Starting with the train ride from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. I decided to trust the rumours that all overnight trains are not as bad as China and I ended up with a 1st class ticket. Holy Cow - i'd say its not the same as China. I got there early and was just able to walk onto the car and find my room - no pushing or waiting for an hour to get a 2 min window for boarding. There was one bed down and the upper bed was put up against the wall - allowing one to sit up and read - novel concept! There was a single German lady that joined me and we enjoyed a delicious curry dinner brought by a waiter. When we were ready to sleep the man in charge of our car came and put up my upper bunk and made the bed - the sheets were even warm. It was comfortable, but unfortunately it still was a train and I wasn't really able to sleep with all the rocking. I arrived in Chiang Mai at 7:30am and decided to sign up for a trekking trip
that started at 9:30am. I know, I was talking about relaxing for a few days, but I figured if I wanted to do a 3 day trip, I needed to get it started!
The first day wasn't too exciting - it was mostly a lot of driving and waiting. There was actually a guy named Zdenek from the Czech Republic! Man was he surprised when I could pronounce his name.... I told him it took about 3 days of hanging out with a Zdenek to figure it out the first time 😊 The group started as 12 people, but became 10 when 2 of the 6 25-year old Irish guys went back to Chiang Mai. One of them had stepped on a shell a few days before and his foot was definitely infected - it was a huge sausage and I have no idea how they thought the guy was going to walk through the jungle on it. So we waited for him to see a doctor and confirm that yes, it was infected. By the time we started walking to our first village it was around 4, so it was a very fast hike to get there by sunset.
Cooking class
I need to get one of those knives at home! very simple accommodation - the shower made our Nepal tea houses seem luxurious.
The second day started with an hour trek, followed by a 1/2 hour elephant ride - quite fun (very glad it was in the jungle as I later saw people riding them down a paved road), and then in the afternoon we arrived at our waterfall campground where we a had a little swim - quite chilly! The weather wasn't as warm as I thought it would be - very cold at night, but no rain. The 3rd day had an hour or so of hiking and then another 1/2 hour detour - bamboo rafting. It was pretty fun - there were some white water waves and it we were all pretty wet by the time it was done.
I made my way back to Chiang Mai and then spent the next nights hanging out with my buddy Ryan from the Nepal trip. It was really nice to spend a few days with someone I now consider a friend rather than meeting new strangers every day. Unfortunately we did have some rainy weather, but as we avoided visiting all the temples, we did stay dry. Very weird to know it was Halloween - not so much dressing up for us. Highlights? Delicious green curry, a 2.5 hour massage - one hour Thai and the 1.5 foot massage, some crazy shopping at the night bizarre, piercing my nose, an all day cooking class and finally a night of beer and Thai boxing - very entertaining evening... more from us being goofy than watching the boxing! Kidding about the nose piercing... ha ha ha, I'm so funny - but I did sit in a tattoo parlour while Ryan got his ear pierced.
Today's been a travel day. I was a bit on the tired side when my alarm went off at 6:30 - that red bull can sure keep a girl from sleeping! I flew from Chiang Mai back to Bangkok, had a 5 hour stop over and arrived in Phenom Penh around 5. I decided to roll the dice and take a motorcycle taxi from the airport to my hotel. Definitely worth it - a little scary, but I found it wasn't so bad as long as I didn't watch the break lights in front of us or envision flying off the back 😊 There is definitely a different feeling in Cambodia - I think its going to be a sad few days of seeing people very badly off - but that's one way to appreciate everything once I get home....
That's it for now. I am so excited about Lana arriving tomorrow! I can't believe my trip is more than 1/2 over 😞 It's going to be Christmas before I know it! I'll just have to start squeezing in more fun as the weeks slip away!
I miss everyone and loved Broden as a zebra - very cute 😊
love Steph
Advertisement
Tot: 0.051s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0274s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb