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Published: September 21st 2009
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What is your idea of a great week-end? This is a tricky question. Our last week-end was amazing...and by the number of messages and comments we received on travelblog, you seems to agree with this. In Shanghai, a great week-end was full of partying...and some decent weather. In Bangkok...great week-end...seems simply to be one more adventure...one more session of great fun! So this week-end, Leslie is in Vietnam....don't worry...I'm sure he also enjoyed his time. So as he "decided" to left us on our own, we escaped to the north of Thailand...or more precisely...not up up north there, mor more...up north in the middle...to Chiang Mai!
Chiang Mai...if you know me, you would say straight on...Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental...you are right, but no this time...first...we are going to enjoy the "Queenstown of Asia"...the new adventure city of South East Asia. What does Chiang Mai provide for "adventures"...Here is the list, my comments are coming later. Elephant rides, white water rafting, kayaking, off-road driving, mountain-biking, zorb, trekking, bamboo rafting, bungee jumping, zip-lining...and thai cooking classes...plus few more...
Two of the above are still on my list to do...soon, one day. There are off-road driving in a buggy and finally trying
the zorb. But our choice this weekend was packed with two other activities, zip-lining and white water rafting. We drop Leslie at the airport after school on Friday to catch his flight to Saigon. Once this done, we headed back to town to catch our night train to Chiang Mai. No Orient-Express either this time, the original plan was to get a 1st class compartiment with the beds only...for some couple privacy...but we bought our tickets too late and had to satisfy ourselves with the second class...clean and nice, but less private...
For your info, on Friday night we found out that there is only one first class car for the whole train. Both first class and second class providing comfortable sleeping facilities...so next time, we are booking 3 weeks in advance for a friday night train! The train did arrive an hour late, but we were ready for it. It's great to wake up in the morning, crossing jungles and forests of Thailand. Once in Chiang Mai, we made our way to our little nest for the week-end...not Four Seasons, but still very enjoyable.
Light lunch and we were ready for our first activity: Zip-lining. The "flight
of the Gibbon" is around one hour outside of Chiang Mai in the middle of the forest...logic! This is quite a new attraction, at it has been open for less than 2 years. It was also a first for Ma'ri, and the best zip-lining for me so far. And you know what, it may be rainy season...but the sun was there, and not only Saturday, Sunday too, great!
This zip-lining has ten lines, with two of them being above 100 meters long, and really fun. On addition to this, they have few ropes to get you down from "high" in the tree, to either "middle" of the tree, or low on the ground. Our guide was fun, and we had also fun with the group of young guys from Isreal in our group. It is their New Year for the moment, and we had the feeling we were in the middle of Tel Aviv at some point.
After this, we made it back to town, few good glasses of wine, one or two bars later...as Chiang Mai is pretty sedated, we were in bed getting ready for another adventure...another day of fun!
White water rafting...this is the
3rd river for Ma'ri, the seventh for me. We are still trying to get a flight confirmation for our trip to Nepal next month...for a lot more serious waters....but before that, and in the event we go somewhere else, here is our Sunday of white water rafting. If you do want to raft in Thailand, limit yourself to August, September and October...everything else, the water is pretty low...and the experience less fun. We are at the peak of the high water level...so this was a great rush! The pictures of our day rafting speak for themselves. I did bring a one-time-usage camera with me. My pics are clearly not the same quality, but it was so fun to get the guide telling me...in Class IV...no taking pictures...need your hands...euh, he was maybe right, but it was still fun....and most of the pictures are really not great as no proper focusing time was allowed! We ended up with a nice couple living in Abu Dhabi, rafting a 25 degres water...and as usual...rainy season...high water levels...but hey, it was full sun!
By the time you will read this, I'm ready for my next little adventure...in a country I never even thought
I would set up foot one day...it's a small world!
So till next time, coming pretty soon! Enjoy, because we live only once, and it better be good! Oh, and did I tell you, we did not take the train on the way back, flying is still way easier...
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liliram
liliram
sure looks like a lot of fun!
When I think Chiang Mai, I always think elephant rides. Now I know there's lots more to do there. Hey, those are funny pics. Who took the photos?