North Thailand

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I've spent the last few days in the north of Thailand, going on treks for 3 days from Chiang Mai and for 2 days near Chiang Rai. I'd hoped to do a bit more trekking and a bit less trailing round agencies looking for treks, but it seems to be pretty difficult to get more than a 3 day trek, and most of those involve driving round in a 4x4, elephant riding, rafting etc, leaving you to do about 2 hours walking somewhere inbetween. But the treks I've been on did get me out into the forest and staying in 3 separate hill tribe villages, ranging from the genuinely friendly to the...well, lets just say they'd seen a lot of tourists. For the most part though, a very good experience to see some of rural life here.

I'm hoping to cross the Mekong tomorrow and go into Laos, although I've just realised tomorrow is Sunday, so I could be stuck in a border town for an extra day. I'm looking forward to it, I've not heard a bad word about Laos from all the people I've met who've been there, the consensus is that it's a great place and very 'authentic' whatever that is, I'm about to find out.

Anyway, here are some photos of the last week or so and please note the new feature - photos from LAST NIGHT at the Loy Kratong festival here in Chiang Rai. That's right, not even 24 hours old.

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Photos

Day 1 of first trek
Thereza, Nathalie and Mike with our guide, Nu

Lahu village
Our base for the first night

Watching videos of themselves
After we had arrived, we had an action packed hour or so entertaining the village kids, mainly by taking videos of them messing around and playing them back to them again. We got tired of it before they did

Village kid
Saw this boy leaving the village in the morning

Bamboo rafting
After walking in the morning, we floated down the river for 3 hours on this raft, a relaxing way to reach the next village. We saw people fishing in the river and water buffalo steeping themselves at the side

Sleeping quarters
Standard bamboo hut accomodation

2nd highest mountain in Thailand
And yes, the name escapes me

Field workers, near Chiang Rai
At the start of the second trek, we walked around the starting point area for a couple of hours before setting off on the trek. These workers are planting garlic between rice harvests, they get paid 20baht a day for working in the fields, which works out about 30p. Life in Thailand is cheap, but it's not that cheap, a meal at a roadside stall will cost about 20baht. As lf life wasn't hard enough for them, I planted some of their garlic for them, they probably had to go back and redo it after I'd gone, i think I put them all in upside down.

Dangerous snake
So our porter told us, but he also didn't know what kind it was, so that could have been talk for the tourists.

Village house
In the village we stayed in overnight on the second trek. The livestock is kept in the space underneath the house, which makes for an interesting alarm call if you get the rooster right under your head. A lot of the houses have solar panels to provide electricity.

Wee piggy
Every family seens to have hundreds of these

Me and Ann, our guide
On the balcony of the house we stayed in looking our over the mountains. Very peaceful apart for the sounds of chickens, dogs, pigs, cowbells, kids and motorbikes.

Forest meal
The bamboo tubes were filled with water and noodles and eggs boiled in them