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Published: September 10th 2008
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As you can tell from Steves blog I wasn't really enjoying my post as a babysitter so I decided to go off on a little adventure of my own up to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.
I jumped on the overnight train which is the best way to travel as you get a proper bed to sleep in and wake up in your destination. I arrived at 8am and set off to find a place to stay. Stepping off the train you straight away notice the difference between here and Bangkok as you can breathe fresh air and instantly relax.
I was determined to save some money on accomodation so ended up in a really grotty place for 140 baht a night (just over two pounds) but it felt safe and the owners were really friendly and helpful.
The first day was spent exploring the temples of which there are hundreds. My favourite had trees in the grounds which had notices attached to them with various buddhist (I assume) quotes. I loved these and spent ages wandering the grounds as they were so peaceful. One of the temples is made of silver, apparently the only one in the world.
Next I
headed to the night market which i wasn't that impressed with. On the way home I noticed a stall selling fruit wine with a few people sat on little stools around it. An english girl seemed to be acting as an unpaid PR girl for them as she called me over saying I "had to try this wine". Well it would be rude to say no right? The wine wasn't all that good but at 20 baht a glass (30p) you cant really complain.
I knew that I wanted to do a tour up in the mountains but there are so many different tour operaters in Chiang Mai that it was really hard to know which ones were any good. They all seemed about the same price so in the end I left it up to luck and booked a 2 day/1 night trek.
There were nine of us on the trek, four people from Switzerland, an english couple and two american ladies,as well as two tour guides.
They picked us up at 9am and the tour guide introduced himself as Jack, Jack Sparrow. Hold on, we've got a comedian here. We jumped in the back of the van and
drove for an hour or so up to the mountains. After a short and fairly easy walk we stopped at a waterfall to have lunch and then jumped in for a swim which was so nice to cool down. I dont think I could ever get bored with swimming in waterfalls, there is nothing better.
The afternoon was spent trekking through the jungle which was quite an easy walk up to the village we were to spend the night in. It was pretty uneventful, especially compared to the following day...
The village was small with a few wooden houses on stilts and the hut we were to spend the night in. it was nice because it didn't feel too touristy. I had been told of some tours where you feel that the tribes are dressing up just for the tourists sake, showing you their authentic primitive lifestyle, then go back to their houses with sky TV and Ipods. Where we were felt like they were just getting on with their every day lives as rice farmers and selling beer to the funny western people who come to visit.
The tour guides cooked us one of the best meals I have
had in Thailand, a chicken green curry and a dish made of pumpkin and some other vegetables that was so good. It was then time for a few beers around the fire and Jack Sparrow got his guitar out. This has to be one of my favourite moments of travelling so far. All day he had been talking about singing later on in the evening and wanted one of us to sing "you know, the song from Titanic". We were understandably a bit dubious. As the night, and the beers, went on we came to life a bit more and sang along to mostly western songs with the words changed for comic effect. This involved adding "love you long time" to the songs.
Then came time for a bit of Celine Dion. He said to one of the girls "you be Rose and I'll be Jack". Now, the theme from Titanic is a hard song to sing granted, but this has to be hands down the best version I have ever heard. Played on the guitar it had a slight reggae twist and sung with a Thai accent it was pure genius. Each time the key changed he would sing
louder until he was screeching to the finale. Amazing.
Thank you Jack for making our night so memorable.
Sleeping under mosquito nets in one big hut with mattress' on the floor was more comfortable than it sounds and I was quite cosy, until something fairly big brushed across my leg. I was thinking "its okay, its just one of the cats that were hanging around. Hold on how did a cat get in here? and there's no noise? What could move without making a sound? There are no snakes up here surely?" I have since found out that yes there are lots of snakes, including cobras. I'm hoping I just dreamt it.
Our nice nights sleep was shattered in the morning by the start of our eventful day.
We were woken by someone shouting and sounding quite scared. I assume he was shouting help. It turned out that our other tour guide had an epileptic fit in the night, only no one knew he was epileptic so the people sharing a room with him were pretty freaked out. Luckily we weren't too far from the road so he got off to hospital. Now just one tour guide we headed off
cooking
yummy thai food for our three hour trek back down the mountain.
It was all downhill and although we were very lucky with the weather it had been raining so it was pretty slippery and precarious. I think most of us had a slip at some point, I landed hard on my backside with a nice cut down my arm, just a scratch.
Next came the bamboo rafting which I thought would be a nice gentle meander down the river. Turns out we were using the same bit of river they use to send the rubber ones down for white water, only we were on 8-10 pieces of bamboo tied together. There were four of us on the boat, the girls sat in the middle and the guy who works there at the front and Paul, a guy in our group at the back, both with sticks to steer the raft. At one point Pauls foot went through one of the bamboo sticks, not a good sign. Our driver was one of those who was finding it funny to try to knock other boats over and at one point we bashed against another raft, sending him and Paul into the water. At first
this seemed funny until we saw Pauls face as he got back on to the boat. I'm not the best person to have around in this situation as I took one look at his leg and saw bone and just went really pale and felt faint.
Luckily he was fine and it was just a bad cut as we all thought it was broken. This is why I'm not an outdoorsy type.
In the end we all got home in one piece but for a few battle scars. I had a great time, met some wicked people and realised that its really easy to travel on your own and not scary at all.
p.s. sorry for the lack of photos, I forgot to take the charger with me. I am getting sent some from the other people on the tour so soon as I have those I will add them.
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