Chiang Mai, Tattoo's, Jungle Trekking & The night bus

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After the buzz of the Tiger Temple, "Jeath Railway", waterfalls and crazy minibus driver, Charlie and I had one day to relax before heading 380 miles north to Chiang Mai.
Booking through our agent, Sue Boo, had turned out to be effortless from the start and this form continued with us reaching the bus station to find all we needed was the ticket Sue had organised for us and we were given our place on the bus.
Everything is different here, we had to turn up at the bus station (a small room with a desk and mirrors on opposite walls to give the illusion of space, which it did lack!) 1.5 hours prior to the bus departing. Why this was I will never know. The grumpy lady on the night shift threw our bags down in the corner of the room with all the other parcels and bags that were heading up there. Charlie and I sat there waiting for something to do.
Charlie remembered she needed to charge her phone and asked the lady in the station/small room if this was possible. The request was greeted with a sharp "NO" and a stern shake of the head. This was the first negative thing to come from a person living in the land of smiles and took both of us by surprise.
With still an hour to go, we headed out of the mirrored room and over the road to a conveniently placed large market/bazaar. Inside, after only four days living on a diet of rice and noodles, we stumbled upon our first chance of home comfort, western food! And the only option for us, Mcdonalds! Not proud of it, but there is only so much rice the human body can handle! I'm not going further into that, but I am sure your imagination will fill in the gaps.
Following our candle lit meal (shoe shop opposite), we battled through the market outside the bazaar and back to the bus station unaware of what we had in store (queue dramatic music!).
We were beckoned onto the bus, a new looking, well painted coach that would have looked at home, at home! We were given pole position seats at the front of the upper deck!
As the coach departed, all was well, it was only 8.30 at night, so the lights were still on, the music playing and on the big screen TV at the front was a looping VT about the bus service. The TV stayed on, showing the new film Thor, but dubbed very loudly in Thai, strange thing to see. 2 hours later, the TV stopped and the lights went out. Time to get some sleep and hopefully awake to what Chiang Mai would have in store for us. The bus provides blankets to keep warm as the A/C on the bus is blasting out on full and VERY cold! Following the theme of the minibus driver, this bus driver was just as dangerous! Swerving around lorries, slamming on the brakes and occasionally turning around to head the opposite direction for a mile before turning round the correct way again!
All of this meant, on a 12 hour bus journey, I managed around 2 hours sleep whilst Charlie had around 5.
When I did eventually get some sleep and awoke in Chiang Mai, result!
We were met at the bus station, another small shop on a busy main road, by a Thai man to take us to our hotel, the Winner Inn. We jumped in the taxi for us to drive about 30 seconds to the hotel! A journey we could have easily have walked! As we pulled up to the hotel, the windows had pictures of snowflakes and a reindeer printed on them.
After checking in, Charlie turned to me and asked if I thought the Winner Inn was meant to be the Winter Inn. This was one of the best bit of "Thenglish" I have seen!
A day of traveling around Chaing Mai, A beautiful and very old city was followed by Charlie and I being being called for a meeting in the dinning room of the hotel about the jungle trek we were going on.
Like the tiger temple, we thought we were mainly going elephant riding and then heading back to the hotel to relax.
Again, Sue Boo had gone one better!
We sat down and Met Joe, a lad from Greenwich. He, like us had booked the trip on a whim and as we all found out in the meeting, we would get more than we thought. We were told that we needed additional clothing to take with us, most of which we already had, but none of us had a rain poncho. That night we all headed out to pick them up.
The next day, we all were picked up at the hotel at 9am (actually on time this time!) and sitting on the taxi were three guys, Alan (a Glaswegian), Andy (a Liverpudlian), both doctors, and Zach (from Boston, USA).
After all the initial greeting, all six of us headed off to pick up a German couple, Jean and Manuel, before heading an hour out of Chiang Mai.
We stopped outside a couple of bamboo huts, in a very rural part of Thailand. We all jumped off the taxi to be called toward one of the huts. Turning around the corner we all saw elephants everywhere! Sadly, most of them were chained by one foot and could only move a small distance from the concreted peg in the ground. An adult elephant could easily have pulled one of these pegs out the ground, but as the saying goes "an elephant never forgets" and this is very true as they remember not being able to pull the peg out when they were young and still believe it to be true.
We later found out that this is far better than how the worker elephants are treated. Our elephants only did 2-3, one hour long treks a day and were fed and watered well. Worker elephants work from dawn till dusk with no breaks for food or water.
Charlie and I, Andy and Alan, Zach and Joe, and Jean and Manuel all rode the elephants in respective pairs. It was a very bumpy ride! We were able to buy a bag of bananas for 20 Baht (around 10p) for the elephants. They knew this and every 2 minutes, they would stop and their trunks would come over their head and in a way, ask for a banana by breathing heavily on us. Not providing a banana would leave us waiting there for 5 minutes before the local, riding at the head of the elephant would hake a noise and we'd carry on. The elephant ride was amazing.
We all jumped back in the taxi and eventually stopped for another bite to eat. As we sat, suddenly, the rain came down! The road looked like a river, but as ever, the temperature stayed up as the humidity was high. This was the first time we spoke to Imran, or Rambo as he preferred to be called. We sat for 30 minutes eating hot rice and vegetables out of a plastic bag and little did we know the trek we had in store!
3 hours of walking uphill in the jungle later, we stopped, all sweating and very tired at a village that was deserted! Rambo said we were just before the tourist season and therefore, there was no one in the village. Rambo had explained that we would be stopping at a waterfall for a swim.
The waterfall was next to the village and sounded like a busy motorway. It was amazing. We were able to stand under the strong current of water on the sandy bed that had formed over many years. Rambo was catching small fish for his dinner. After redressing at the deserted village we picked up where we left off feeling slightly refreshed after our swim. After another 1 and a half hours trekking uphill we arrived at our final destination for the day. A quick note about the jungle insects. . . The ants are the size of a house spider at home and we saw a yellow backed spider the size of a mans hand! ! !
Our accommodation for the evening was a wooden hut on stilts. Our beds were a mixture of 2 inch thick mattresses, tiny pillows, towels, sleeping bags and blankets, all covered by mosquito nets (along with a few holes).
We all sat down for dinner at a wooden bench underneath out sleeping area, with a local who lived next door, who turned out to be Rambo's uncle. A few drinks, games and banana leaf "cigarettes" later it was pitch black outside. Rambo's uncle caught a cricket that landed on the sleeve of his shirt with lightning quick reactions. . . Zach and Andy then asked if he would eat it, which he understood as "can we eat it? " he disappeared and returned a minute later with a now char-grilled cricket. Andy's face said it all as Zach tucked into the cricket with Rambo's uncle. Apparently it just tasted like barbequed anything! After this the conversation turned to what else is edible in the jungle. Again, off he went but this time returned with a tree frog, which he also burnt to a crisp and this time he, Zach and Andy tried some, to Alan's disgust! After all the strange activities were over and the exhaustion of the day caught up with us, we all went to bed.
The next morning we got up and off to a good start but had to leave Joe, Jean and Manuel behind, as they were on a "3 day, 2 night" and we were on a "2 day, 1 night". We were all relieved that today's trek was mostly downhill or flat! We trekked all morning before stopping for lunch, at which point Rambo left us, which we were all surprisingly sad about. He had become a bit of a hero in our eyes. We were taken by truck to a near by river for a bamboo raft ride. Charlie and I were on one raft and Alan, Andy and Zach on the other. This was a very comical activity as Alan, the Scotsman, who had already squealed at the elephants, every river crossing we had to make and all sorts of animals and bugs, was now screaming at every twist and turn in the river... All whilst wearing the smallest possible lime green speedos along with a rather "snug" life vest! Sadly this was our last activity with the group but we still had one more laugh as we were dropped off in a village next to the river to await our taxi back to the hotel. Our life vests were taken back, so Alan, already a shaking mess, was now standing in a small village full of very religious and reserved folk in nothing but his rather fetching speedos! ! Adding nothing to his male ego we got in the taxi and went back to our hotels in Chiang Mai.
The 5 of us spent the next couple of days together until Alan and Andy had to fly to Koh Samui for the rest of their holiday.
Charlie and I tried to familiarise ourselves with Chiang Mai but ended up walking down the same streets over and over again! We had walked past a place on a few occasions called "Bastard Tattoo's" and we decided to both get tattoos. I knew the traditional way of tattooing in Thailand is to use bamboo so we decided to go for these. . . Not realising how painful it was going to be! I went for a Buddhist tattoo meaning well being, health and happiness on my upper back whilst Charlie designed her own with the girl in the shop, a flower design down the side of her hand. Zach came to meet us and watch us in pain during our tattoos. This was our last day in Chiang Mai. We then got the night bus back to Bangkok then yet another the following night from Bangkok to Chumpon for the connection morning boat to Koh Tao.

Watch out for the next issues which include: Our three weeks in paradise on Koh Tao, Koh Samui and our favorite Koh Phangan. The delights of the Full Moon Party and some more amazing friends!

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Photos

Elephant Riding Baby
Baby elephant that followed us on the ride pestering us for bananas.

Charlie & I Elephant riding
Elephant asking for more bananas...we had run out at this point!

Night Time Festivities in the Jungle
Beers and games under the stars in the pitch black.

Charlie Walking Along the Dry Rice Fields
On the final walk back.

Charlie's Tattoo
The finished result.