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Published: September 18th 2008
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Chiang Mai Temples
Lots and lots of temples all around chiang mai. Easy to walk to. In the end i ended up staying the night at sarahs place in bangkok, as she had a power shower, swimming pool and good food, which seemed too much of a luxury to pass up! So because of this i missed my bus to chiang mai from bangkok, soooo i then had to book myself a flight from bangkok the next day to chiang mai which cost something silly like 25 pounds....It turned out to be such an easier way of getting here, and i got a taxi from chiang mai airport to town which cost like 1 pound. So i arrived and obviously being the rich traveller splashed out 650 baht (10 pounds) on a luxury hotel with a swimming pool, air conditioning and hot water, yes thats right hot water! Although not that u need it in thailand as its so hot anyway a cold shower is quite welcoming!
So the i easily booked a trek (about 20 odd booking places) and the next day departed to the mountains in a chicken bus with another 9 tourists which were made up of 5 belgians, 2 germans and 2 south koreans. This was a weird situation for me as it
was now the first time i had totally been outlanguaged (that a word?). It was good though as i practiced my gcse french and my german is pretty good anyway as i go to see sarah in koln, and obviously my south korean is impeccable! This may be time for a language lesson of what ive learnt from my travels although ill be damned if i spell any right!
Sawadee Kup = hello (thai)
Beer Chang Ning Cod Kap = 1 beer please (thai)
Kop un Kap = Thankyou (thai)
Abujah = hello (tribal thai)
Asun assio = hello (south korean)
Priviet = hello (russian)
Taxiboat Taxiboat = give me money now u farang and ill take u to a beach
Tuk tuk tuk tuk = let me drive you around bangkok for 4 hours so i get commission from jewellery shops!
Could go on for ages! but my rant now....so anyway we started day 1 of the trek and it took about 3-4 hours to reach our destination. We passed one stunning waterfall and then the rest of it was pretty much up up up to get the lahu village tribe for the evening. Not sure about
how tribal these people are now supposed to be, but from the solar panels, satellite reciever dishes and mopeds, im thinking the western world has pretty much reached them! I thought i was promised a trip to see the longneck tribes -apparently have rings around their necks to save them from tiger attacks-but guess not! Speaking of tigers, didnt see any animals on any of the trek really apart from ones which bite you! Had a good evening this night playing some guitar, and playing shithead with the guides.
Woke up the next morning, having to get up for a really late start of 10.30. Breakfast was good, and we left with the sun beating down. This lasted for all of five minutes and pretty much had rain then for the rest of the day, with a few sunny intervals! Not sure if this made the 6 hours of trekking easier or harder really, as you were a lot cooler with the rain coming down, but it made a lot of the paths very trecherous and slippery. Glad i had my hardcore jungle boots for this, really good grip, although they have given me some major blisters! We were promised
Elephant Trekking
Very powerful animals that it is surprising they obey human instruction. in the trip some waterfalls, but as we got to them they were more like river rapids, with all the water from the rain flowing into this one river. Well it is the monsoon season now i suppose, and we really did get treated to a big rainstorm. The rain ceased as we came further down the trail and as good timing for when we arrived at our next jungle camp, very basic, with a longdrop and very worn mattress on the ground with a mozzy net. Should have brought my hammock into the jungle would have been so comfy! That night i played the local guy who stays here at draughts, he is amazing beat me every single time, i think he has just played tourists non stop for like 5 yrs, genius!
Woke up next morning about 7, sleep being pretty much on and off all night, to the sound of some roosters. Really easy trekking day, had to do only 30 minutes to arrive at the white water rafting, which was wicked fun just a shame it didnt last longer, 1 hour felt like 5 minutes! This was the easy way out of the jungle, and we
then changed to a bamboo raft as the rapids got easier which took us on the final leg home.
6 days left now, going to hire a moped tommorrow and burn round the temples and maybe go to the zoo! and in 2 days i am joined by sarah again and were gonna do a proper white water rafting trip which lasts 3 hrs, should be awesome. Then i head back to bangkok for my last 4 days X
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