Blogs from North-West Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 491

Early start today, 6am. Jumped into the minibus which took us up to Chaing Rai. We didn't realise how far away it actually was, but its not like we have to watch our time.. Our first stop was a Hot Water Spring, the tour guide seemed quite excited about it, but it wasn't that impressive. Smelt of gone off eggs, sulphur. We recognised this from a trip to a volcanic rainforest years ago in Dominica. We headed off for a 3 hour drive to Chaing Rai city, stopping off on the way at a temple, which was very impressive, it was about 900 years old. Upon arrival in Chaing Rai we went to a place called the "Golden triangle", this is on the corner of Thailand / Laos / Burma. They are seperated by the Mekong ... read more

Chiang Mai is a quieter city than Bangkok and a welcome respite from the chaos we left behind us. Its surrounded by Moats and a wall that was built to defend against Burmese invaders 700 years ago. This part of Thailand is much greener and has many mountains as a backdrop which are covered in an eery mist early in the morning. Thursday morning we got a mini bus from the hotel to our first stop, to head to a tribal village. We had to trek through a jungle on a route which was extremely steep. Most tribes that live in the mountains are of semi nomadic origin, having migrated from places such as China, Laos or Tibet during the past 200 years or so. We didnt realise the walk would be quite as tough, but ... read more

Hi All - After chilling out for 4 days doing nothing except getting baked on Lamai Beach in Koh Samui we headed up to Chiang Mai for our 3 day jungle trekk. Getting there was pretty hectic and involved an overnight bus trip back to Bangkok which arrived at 5:30AM, then hanging around Bangkok until 7:40PM for our overnight train ride up to Chiang Mai. That was all good actually because I got to see Starwars III - WICKED! When we first arrived we met our Guide, Mr Dong, two Chillian girls, Catalina & Ravi (sorry Ravi I can't spell your name properly!) and Jose & Maria (Olla Chicka!) from Spain. We all hit it off straight away and decided that instead of having a quiet one we'd push onto one of the local bar. The ... read more

Once again we all woke up feeling sorry for ourselves and headed off, and just like the previous day it started raining. After trekking for about 2 hours we finally reach the end of the jungle and got in the back of our pickup truck. Sad as it was, our minds were already on our next activities for the day - Elephant riding and bamboo rafting! So after a quick bite to eat we headed off to the elephant riding. Needless to say, elephants are BLOODY HUGE! The ride itself, was well, err, the equivalent of a jungle whip around the block. Not that interesting. So we then headed to the bamboo rafting where the real fun began. It was four to a craft plus one local driver. On my raft was Maria, Andy and Pete. ... read more

A Hill Tribe Trek in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand Staring: "Crazy" also known by the alias "Chen" our guide and master, is a short dark faced smiling man who enjoys whiskey and making love to a lady assistant behind the thin bamboo walls while the rest of us, in the adjacent room, sip beer quietly and pretend to ignore it. "Bekham" - Another Assistant, like Chen loves Whiskey, his favourite catch phrase "Oh My Buddha!" X - a young kid who claims he is 20, apparently takes opium and drinks whiskey, actual age somewhere between 12 and 14. Co-Staring: Martin (a well travelled, great humoured Swiss 18 year old recently in Nepal and India) Shill (a married French man who is, by agreement, on a holiday from his wife) Jane (an empathetic English girl who has ... read more