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Published: November 5th 2007
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On our first full day in Chang Mai we explored some of the city and went round a small market. Our first bit of excitement in Chang Mai came in the evening when we attended a Thai boxing evening. The boxing ring was in the middle of a huge warehouse type building with bars and pool tables. We were given our own table and waiter service about 2 rows back from the action. There were 8 matches lined up for the night and to our surprise the first match was between two children no older than twelve. However, this did not mean they held back, in fact they bloody hard as nails. The next few fights saw the weights go up. In one fight we saw a knockout after 1 round. The doomed fighter took a kick full on in the face, making a huge almighty slap followed by the thud of him hitting canvas. In the middle of the night we were treated a show match where 4 blindfolded boxers were placed in the ring and told to go for it. It was funny seeing them flail there arms about and more often than not they hit the ref, who
gladly hit them back. The main event of the night was between a Thai boxer from Chang Mai and a Brazilian thai boxer. The Brazilian guy was by far a class above all the other fighters we saw and easily dispatched his opponent. It was a great night of entertainment.
The next day we slept off the drinks from the night before and once again just took in Chang Mai. It is definitely my favourite 'big' city that I have visited so far. It is an extremely laid back place and is virtually hassle free. There are lots of activities to do in and around Chang Mai and the live music scene here is great. On the evening it was time to learn a bit of Thai cooking. We booked a course which included a market tour and tuition for five different Thai dishes of our choice. The market tour allowed us to learn about all the different ingredients and taught us which ones to buy. The five dishes I cooked were: Pad Thai fried noodles, sprong rolls, hot and sour soup, fried chicken with cashew nuts and a Thai green curry. We were each given our own workstations
with chopping board, huge knife, woks and burners. The food on the most part did taste good.
At around 2am on the night it became evident that my cooking was not good at the majority of it reappeared in front of me in toilet. I was struck out for the next day, spending all my time in the guesthouse, vomiting and having bouts of the runs. I guess I have done well to go this long without being heavily ill but I never thought it would be off my own cooking.
After having slightly recovered I left the hotel room 36 hours later and went to visit the Sunday night market and the daily night bazaar. Both markets were absolutely huge but did sell pretty much the same things. The Sunday night market was better as it had musicians and was in a better surrounding.
The next day we decided to go action adventure with a day doing quad biking in the morning and then white water rafting in the afternoon. We first drove the quad bikes around the practice track before heading out onto the proper muddy roads. Along the way we stopped at a waterfall
and a temple. The bikes were a lot faster than I thought they would be but really easy to control. It was a good adrenaline kick but it was nothing compared to what lay in wait for us.
On the way from the quad bike centre to the rafting we had to pick up our boat. This was then strapped onto the back of our pickup truck. We were allowed to sit in the boat on top and wave to the bemused tourists passing by. After a quick safety lecture we headed off down the river with our captain. The first few small rapids went fairly hitch free and it seemed we were in for a fun ride. The next rapid however was not so straightforward. Our boat dirfted into a rock and the rapids were trying to take it over a log which had been lodged into the rock. Panic set in as our boat tipped over throwing me, Dan and Donkey into the raging waters. Before setting off they told us to keep our feet up out of the water but this is an almost impossible feat. The second I hit the water I was dragged down and around. My lifejacket and helmet were essential as I bumped into rocks, my feet and shins took the biggest battering. After the initial swirling down the shallow drop of rapids, I was plunged into a deep rapid where I seemed to be under for an eternity. It seemed at the time unlikely that I would ever come back up for air but I resurfaced and felt a rope brush me which I grabbed onto. I turned round to see one of our guides had thrown the rope in and was pulling me and Donkey back in. For a few moments I thought Dan was gone but he had gotten out on the other side of the river with the upside down boat and our captain. We were all pretty shaken up but luckily we all came away with no real injuries to speak of. Donkey came out worse with quite a few bruises. Despite this crash we continued on and found the rest of the rapids a lot easier mainly because we were in a boat this time. The rapids here I think are only small in comparison to some places but they were immensely strong. It would have been impossible to stop had we not been helped by our tour guides and captain who knew exactly what to do, even then we were still majorly lucky but better for the experience. Amazingly someone was actually there to take pictures of us struggling in the water and he sold me a framed photo of me with my head just above water flying down the river. A definitely good memento.
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