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Published: January 24th 2013
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After a ride in a less than stable tuk tuk, we arrived at the bus station. And were greeted by a bus with cracked windows and no seatbelts, not exactly ideal. 6 hours passed quick enough, with the exception of the loud thai music concert that was being pumped throughout the coach, even our ipods didn't mask it! But after about 6 hours we arrived in Chiang Mai. Here again started the task of finding somewhere to stay which proved difficult, as they either didn't have triples or no room. We politely declined the offer to stay in what some would call a wooden shack, with a squat toilet in the corner and the floor doubled up as the bed. We finally managed to find somewhere, Dutch Delicious, which had big rooms and a good outside seating area which we named the Big Brother lounge. We ditched our bags and went for a wander round town, finding our cheapest changs yet, 159 baht for 3, bargain! An added bonus were the cute dogs from the guesthouse opposite, a really cute puppy which we named Jonathan, and a poodle dressed in a spiderman outift, who affectionatley became known as Spider Poodle. Dinner
was at Aum vegetarian restaurant, where me and kimmy had the best green curry, v.v tasty 😊
Our guesthouse was not the most tranquil place as our night was filled with dogs barking and cockrels crowing, noisy! We spent our day wandering round Chiang Mai, stopping at beautiful old temples and watching the orange robed monks. We decided we needed one big night out in CM, and tonight was the night, me and kim actually wore make up! We started off at the roof top bar, playing cards and drinking mojitos, and progressed along the main street til we reached yellow bar, where we sampled many different cocktails, one tasted like mouthwash, not the best 😞 the night flashed by in a haze of dancing and singing and we finally got to bed in the early hours.
The next day was pretty much a right off after last nights exploits, but we did spend the afternoon skyping home and catching up😊 after a really tasty dinner of fried rice and phad thia, we went on back to Dutch Delicious for an early night.
We were up really early today for our big trip. The guy we'd booked
our trip through had messed up our booking so we were changed onto another trip, which basically entailed the same aspects, but we had to pay again, so Anh, the owner now owed us like 1850 baht each! We were picked up about 9 by Jumbo Trekkers, we had kinda been expecting a VIP minibus but were greeted by a rusty old tin can. Thats where we met our companion for the day, Craig from Liverpool, an interesting character... after a disappointing stop at a butterfly farm, there were like 3, we arrived at Jumbo Elephant Camp. We had to change into really attractive Mahout clothes and were then introduced to one elephant, which we called ellie😊 we were then told the commands, bai was to make the elephant walk forwards and ya was if it was being naughty. These were the most important ones😊 Kim was the first onto the elephant, it was a challenge to get up to be sure, you kinda had to cling on to its ear whilst steeping onto its leg and heaving yourself onto its neck. Luckily we had the help of our guide, Gordon, who kinda just heaved us onto it. We all
had a go at this bit, with me struggling the most to get on 😞 Next we went for a little trek, me and kim shared and elephant, with me on its neck, and kim on its back, practically doing the splits 😊 when we returned to camp, we got the bathe the elephant, which the mahout took as an opportunity to soak me and kim instead of the elephant! The elephant did a poo in the water, much to the amusement of kim. Had a cracking lunch and continued on to our next stop, a short trek to a waterfall, it probably would have been more impressive in the wet season, but was kinda disappointing. The highlight was probably on the way down when i sorta fell into it... luckily managing to escape with only a wet foot 😊 By this point we were ready for white water rafting, and after getting suited and booted we were in the water.Not the most dramatic of rapids, but there were some fast bits, which we enjoyed. Wihout much explanation, we then were transferred onto a bamboo raft, whcih sunk about 3 inches into the water when we all climbed aboard. But
was a nice little ride down the river😊 it was then time to head home, and after a lively journey home with a mixture of lads from europe who regaled us with their interesting but slightly annoying travelling stories. After showering, predominantly cus we were worried about the elephant poo water, we headed out for dinner and treated ourselves to mexican, was really good, and massive portions. Later on, we headed to the sunday walking street market, and were astonished by how many people and stalls there were! Me and kimmy treated ourselves to some new trousers, and various other bits and pieces. Was really cool to take in all the different stalls and people. All in all, a very tiring day, but was such an experience!
The next day I awoke to my first dodgy tummy of the trip, so knew today was gonna be a struggle for me. But we had important issues to deal with, we had to get our money back from Anh!! After numerous visits and stake outs at his shop, we had all finally got our money back by 10 pm, was a trying day to say the least! We did manage to
keep ourselves amused as Anh had a passion for pageants and thus kyle became Mr Tourism 2012. We then headed back to Dutch Delicious for our last nights sleep in Chiang Mai.
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