Northern Elephants and Bamboo Rides

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We got the air conditioned overnight train to Chaing Mai. Chris made friends with the locals and got pissed on about 5L of heinken! Clickety Clack Lak Lak was our waitress and MaiFriend was the carraige supervisor. We had to fight this herd of thai ladies who were part of a group of about 10 and only bought 6 tickets and wanted us to share our seat and give one to them! Crazy ladies.
At Chaing Mai we stayed at the Family Tribal Trek guest house. We had our own bathroom and a fan...good times. Your own bathroom in Thailand is a good time....a REAL good time 😊
We spent most of our time walking around and getting lost. It was really hot and smokey up there. There had been heaps of fires and alot of the forest was just blackness.
On our 2nd day there we went elephant riding, trekking to 2 hilltribe villages and our favourite, bamboo rafting. The elephants were funny...they would only walk between 4-10 steps before wanting more bananas. The trekking was not too hard. At the first village we tried using these little bow and arrow things and I bought a necklace. EVERYWHERE you go in thailand has stall selling all sorts of stuff.
At the next village, the White Karin (related to the long-neck Karin tribe) we watched these ladies making silk cloth for sarongs, bedspreads etc. As soon as we got these all these kids appeared trying to sell bracelets for 5baht each. Was pretty sad actually. If you looked like you might buy something then all of a sudden you were surrounded by 20 little hands trying to get you to buy theirs. Chris bought us one each.
The bamboo rafing was the best fun. It was Sunday so all the locals were having picnics and swimming along the river's edge. When ever we rafted by them they would splash us with water. Basically it was a 1 hr water-fight!!
Sunday also has the walking markets. It is kilometers and kilometers of stalls, shops, food, baskers etc etc. It was amazing. We could have spent up big there, but instead just ate alot of their yummy food!!
The next day we hired a scooter and Chris drove us to the zoo. We saw monkeys, pandas, bears, birds, penguins, rhinos etc etc. Then we had to rush back to the drop the bike off in the traffic. That was an experience...the rule on the road is there is no rules!
The train back to Bangkok was not half as fun. Our TAT tour man turned out to be a bit of a tool. Our train had no air con and was hot and dirty, but the dogs were cute and hey we made it. Could not wait to get back and have a cold shower after that one!

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Photos

Elephant
The real king of the jungle!

Pleased to meet you
Pleased to meet you

Bamboo Rafting
Bamboo Rafting

Weaver
Hilltribe woman weaving cloths

Beer
Beer Chang Kup