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Published: January 6th 2009
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Not too sure where Nic last left off, but I'll start from New Years Eve or so, oh that reminds me - "Happy New Year everyone"!
We booked ourselves, from Chiang Mai, onto an 'Elephant Safari' for the day. We got to go for an elephant ride, ox-cart ride and bamboo rafting, which was all a bit tame and cheesy, but still fun! I was even forced into getting out of the seat, jumping down on the poor elephants neck and bare-back riding him for half of the journey...no-one else seemed to be doing this, I obviously looked like the adventurous type...or maybe our elephant keeper just fancied a laugh!
We got back to our guesthouse in time to get showered, make ourselves pretty and watch Harry Potter 5 (which we found on Asian channel 56 much to my delight) before heading out for the New Year Eve celebrations in Chiang Mai centre. You wouldn't believe how hard it was to find a pub that wasn't full of barely dressed Thai girls/ladyboys waiting for a dirty old western man! We had a few drinks but wandered around most of the night as there were celebrations in the streets and a stage
with performers in the centre. All the locals were lighting these giant paper lanterns and sending them up floating into the night sky. It looked so pretty with hundreds of lanterns floating up and twinkling in the sky. The health and safety laws over here are a bit lax...the lanterns were being sent up with fireworks attached, several getting caught in trees and on electric cables, with big cheers from the gawping crowds when they eventually floated away without blowing anyone up! We joined in with the lantern lighting, but we let ours go in a tree and cable free area...very sensible me thinks! Just before midnight we made our way to the main stage to catch the last few songs from some cheesy Thai pop star and some traditional dancing and then watched the big firework display that brought us into the new year!...and after all of this we still managed to get to bed by half past midnight! Result!
After such a rotten time over Christmas we decided to treat ourselves to a bit of pampering on New Years Day...Nic went for a foot and shoulder massage whilst I opted for a double wammy of a facial with
head massage and a pedicure with foot massage! Nic found it all too rough, apparently he'd just wanted someone to rub his back...I thought it was great, having big slices of cucumber and yoghurt slapped all over my face and my lil feet have never looked and felt so good! That evening we took a thai cookery class...we made tom yam soup, chicken with cashews, panang curry, phad thai and mango with sticky coconut rice! It was all so yummy! Our chef guy kept coming over to me saying "yours was cooked 5 minutes ago" and frantically trying to rescue my dish (I blame me Mam), whilst annoyingly Nic was his favourite pupil! Think I'll stick to pasta and dolmio sauce and let Nic cook the Thai dishes from now on!
We left Chiang Mai on Friday morning at 8.30 for the 3 hour journey to Pai in the very north-west of Thailand, we eventually arrived into the chaos of Pai at 2p.m. Apparently around the New Year is a Thai public holiday and everyone from the south and Bangkok comes up to Pai! All the guesthouses with their over-inflated room rates were full, we eventually found somewhere, over-priced, but
clean for us to lay our heads for the night...and it was attached to a falafel/kebab restaurant which kept Nic happy! We'd heard that there was some good trekking around Pai so popped into a trek tour organiser and signed ourselves up to a 2 day trek with an overnight stay in one of the hill tribe villages. I've got to say we were a bit sceptical at first, we'd heard about stays with hill tribes where they all run to put their traditional dress on and stand for photos and then demand money, the night being manufactured for the tourist...but with the lack of accomodation available in Pai we thought a night anywhere would be a bonus! There was another couple who were also doing the trek with us, Amy and Rupert, some Aussie students...they were just lovely, the 4 of us got on so well and we've now got another place in Melbourne to stay! As soon as we met our guide Pat we knew we'd made a good choice! What a legend! He drove us for hours out of the way, passed his home village in the hills, along dirt paths, through streams until we reached the
beginning of the trek. This wasn't just a little trek...we trudged through rice paddies, thick jungle, streams, clambering up the side of mountains. It was fantastic! Pat had his giant machete out cutting us a path through the dense jungle, digging us up food, teaching us about all the poisonous (but not deadly) wildlife! We reached a stream and Pat wanted us to walk up it's side to get right to the waterfall...we all made it there dry footed but making our way back down wasn't quite so successful, first Rupert went in, then Amy and then malco (mal-co-ordinated) me! We made it to the tiny Karen village of Wa Kou mid-afternoon,had a plodge and cooled off in the river and made ourselves comfy in our bamboo house (which was also where the family cooked, ate and socialised). We drank copious amounts of Thai tea whilst Pat and the 'lady of the house' cooked our meal! After a cold and broken night sleep on the bamboo floor we were awoken at 5.30 by the cockrels (and pigs) living under us...I hate cockerels now! We were then treated to a pig slaughtering and sat in our room whilst the pig that
had been running around earlier was brought into where we were having breakfast...it's head in one bowl, it's insides in another and the rest laid down to be chopped up! The local medicine man came round to join in as apparently it was quite a big event! We drank rice whisky with the medicine man, whilst they very generously handed around pig liver dipped in salt for us to try...it was vile, my piece had big tubey bits of artery running through it...I had a little bite and nearly puked and then realised I'd have to eat it all...erghhh I can still taste it now! what made it worse was that during this, one of the men was mincing all of the muscle up and adding spoonfulls of coagulated blood into it! They offered this round but I managed to get away with not having any without anyone knowing...the other 3 all tucked in, yuk! The 2nd day of trekking was even harder, the climbs steeper, the streams were getting bigger and bigger to cross...we spent half of the time trekking in our flipflops, which should be an olympic sport in its own right!
Anyway we made it back safe
and we both have enjoyed it the most of our travels so far...so bites, flipflops, pigs liver n all it was pretty amazing!
We met up with Amy and Rupert that evening...Rupert and Nic went for a burger....and both woke up yesterday morn with food poisoning again...nice one boys! Me and Nic made the bus journey back to Chiang Mai and connecting flight and we're now in Bangkok...bit of a culture difference to our lil hill village!
Apollogies about the longness and the fact it doesn't make much sense!
Hope everyone is well,
Big love Cat xxxxxxxxx
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M Swan
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More than a bit of a comment
You wrote very well and it was a colourful account. Thoughts- 1.You would not go on a donkey never mind an elephant. 2. Elf and safety/ Thailand dont seem to go together. 3. Remember the kite mark this includes food standards. 4. Do you get food poisoning from me? No, everything is well done. 5. That Nic would be the teacher's pet was never in doubt!