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Published: March 8th 2008
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I've left things a bit long before this update, got myself stuck on a paradise beach with no internet, more about that in a later entry. Not to worry though, things happened here that'll take a fair bit longer to forget. If the bits about Tom's head aren't making any sense you've missed the Bangkok entry I've just written and should read that first.
With Andrea and John we made our way from Bangkok to Chang Mai on an overnight bus. It stopped outside the city where smaller vans and trucks waited to pick us up and take us the final miles. They wanted those miles to be in the direction of their associated hotels and on this occasion we didn't fight it, we looked at the rooms they showed us, they were ok and the lady running it was friendly so we stayed.
The first day was sleep followed by aimless drifting around. We had various ideas of things to do but had to accept that Tom's head injury ruled many of them out. We opted for the "One Day Special Trekking" package, it didn't include anything that should get Tom's head wet or need a
Waterfall
At sunrise helmet.
What it did include was an hour or so wandering along on an elephant. For extra entertainment ours had the lead man sitting on it's head firing his catapult at birds in the trees as we went. We also walked to a few tribe villages, one the Hmong tribe, the other I can't remember. Then onto a waterfall, where Tom stood back enviously as some of us battled through the water to get under the full force its cascade.
The last activity of the day was probably the one we enjoyed the most, an hour or so of bamboo rafting. With an expert steering things at the front we took it in turns to be the person standing at the back with the big stick, nominally doing some steering but mostly not contributing much. Tom had a moment, falling off on a section of rapids but hopping straight back on without getting his hair wet. Andrea wasn't so lucky, her fall taking her leg between the bamboo which had been tied a little loosely, a bit of bruising unavoidable from that one.
The following day we hired bicycles and decided on a ride
to Chang Mai Zoo. Hippos, monkeys, giraffes etc and a really slow monorail kept us entertained until the early evening. We decided to break up the ride back into town with some food and a game of bowling. That's when the drinking started. We ended up playing six games, including for me two that were over 200 and one in the 190s, so the form is still there for now. Having topped up the stomachs again at Mike's Burgers (every burger should have pineapple in it, pineapple is the greatest fruit ever) we carried on the search for drink. I wish I could remember the name of the place we found because it was excellent, big outside multilevel decked area overlooking the river, with a big screen showing live English football. When that closed we were back to the city centre, finding another bar that served drinks in mugs as it was comfortably beyond their licensed hours.
All of which brought us to 7am and daylight. That's when it struck me that a good idea would be to go and see the waterfall 1km or so further up the road we'd ridden to the zoo. Tom rode there
with me, partly because he wanted to, also because I was going to go whether he did or not. We saw lots of monks out and about with their bowls and had the waterfall to ourselves when we arrived.
There has been some debate about whether what happened after that should be talked about, but I've decided now that it should. I'll add for Mums peace of mind that I'm writing this a few weeks later and we learned from it and haven't done anything as stupid since. Tom decided a picture of him on the other side of the waterfall would be good and clambered off to cross, all I had to do was get to a good spot to take the shot. Before I knew it I'd lost grip and slid a good distance before managing to stop myself and hold on. Tom shouted not to move and just concentrate on staying there so thats what I did, face toward the rock waiting for his assistance. Not knowing the comfort of my grip Tom rushed over and also slipped, with greater momentum all I heard was a shout of "worse!!" before he wiped me off the
rock and we were both in the water.
With the camera already being in my hand I somehow managed not to get it wet. We bobbed around for a bit, commented on how lucky we'd just been and took a few photos before getting out. At that point I had another mini-slip back in, getting the camera wet then. It didn't react well to that but works again since it has dried. We both picked up a few scrapes but nothing major and against doctors orders Tom had got his hair wet. It could have been worse.
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Katie
non-member comment
Don't drink and dive!
Well done on the ever more intrepid photos and stories. Laos seems to involove quite a lot of water based activities so be careful. Nice hippo by the way. Enjoy the next round in Laos.