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Published: March 20th 2010
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Buddha
Temple at the top of the hill in Chang Mai Arriving in Chang Mai, Jenny, Tyler and I headed to the hostel in hopes of finding the other girls. What a great relaxing hostel in the middle of a bustling city, as the girls seemed to be out, we head straight for the night market in search for the little old lady that would have dinner ready for us!!! Little big city of course....by the time we had our noodle soup and pad thai we bumped into the girls....and shopping bags a plenty, souvenirs they claim cheap cheap!!! Despite it only beeing one night it was great to see Chris, Mel and Milaine again. We went to bed that night deciding we'd have a temple day and orientation day...and so we did!
As we quickly discovered, Chang Mai is a city you can stay 300 days and have something different to do everyday if you wanted! Quickly making it our favorite over Bangkok. Temples are facinating places of worship with giant golden Bhuddas, offerings at there feet and many monks studying and walking the courtyard, a very peaceful and inviting environment. That nigt, finally killing our curiosity and mostly cause the price was right we went to the ever so popular
Market
shopping for our cooking class in Chang Mai Muay Thai Boxing!! Despite feeling like we ended up at the community center level of competition (might be why the price was right!) Still we got a taste of the local sport and atmosphere it was brilliant...8 fights most lastying 4 or 5 rounds and a few knock outs!!! What an eventfull day.
We all fell in love with the Thai food out here and so decided what better way to bring it home then a cooking lesson 😊 We spent the day learning about different spices and how to make a few traditional dishes at home. First shopping in the market then spent the afternoon preparing and eating....all day cooking and eating! I hope I learnt enough to recreate this back home but at least for a day we were ALL very well fed!!!
752 turns....752 turns through the mountains, this winding road lead us to Pai. A little hippie town, a great place to base yourself for trekking in the hilltribe villages! After a bit of research we discovered that the hilltribes work on a different calendar system and it happens to be New Years at the moment....if we wait a day we'll have the oppertunity to partake
Pai
Chris and I getting rad riding the elephant!!! in the ceremonies, so pushing back our packed schedule we booked a two day hike.
Before heading on our trek we finally decided it's elephant riding time!!! So the six of us head to visit these amazing animals and boy what an adventure! A one hour ride to the river, six of us and 3 elephants....I don't even know how to explain to you what tricks and games these elephants were playing but they were very playful in the water, dropping us in the water almost throwing us off really, rolling around making it difficult to stay on, spraying us with their trunks!! It was a great laugh, a fun filled afternoon playing with elephants and having their trainers laught at us "foreigners!"
The following day Jenny and Tyler head to the Laos border where we plan to meet up again after Chris and I do the trek. Mel and Milaine, feeling sick decided on a day trip to the hilltribe villages, and will wait for us to take the bus to the border. So we head out for our 2 day trek following our local guide Manit, with three other fellow travellers. Over the next 6 hours Manit takes
Karen Village
Preparation for the morning New Year celebration us through the jungle, after of course making our bamboo walking sticks, and showing us different plant and fruits, sharing local knowledge about the different tribes in the area. First visiting the Karen hilltribe where we will be spending the night. They live a simple life Manit explains to us, and we discover just how simple. The familly comprised of four generations, the great grandparents, grandparents, husband and wife and two year son. We learn that the custom here is for the female to offer the males familly compansation for he will leave home and live with the females family and home once married. The house is very basic, built of wood and weaved bamboo the area is one big room kitchen, or area where they make fire for cooking, and the rest of the floor space is empty for sleeping sitting and preparing food, no funiture required. Out the back is a seperate, similar built house devided in two and thin cushions line the floor with mosquito netting covering the beds. The women are constantly preparing food supposing once breakfast is served they start preperations for lunch and same same after lunch for dinner. The men seem to gather
New Year
Receiving blessings from the Karen tribe familly sit, talk outdoors. The children run around laughin gathering firewood, picking fruit out of trees and simply playing and teasing each other!!! In a way it's refreshing, contentment seems to surround us.....the simple life. Having 5 foreigners seem to have no distractions on they're day, the kids seemed curious, and having brought crayons and paper for the kids to play with we enjoyed each others company for the night despite the language barrier.....Impressed with my paper boat that i managed to fabricate out of pure luck, and Christel flying her paper plane....we took a moment to observe the little 8 year old girl folding paper very intently.....only to present to us a paper crane!!! Impressive, they must be learning oragamy here in the hilltribes!!! hahaha!!
In honor of they're new years part of the celebrations is to sacrifice a cow....which we were offered to try for dinner and it was tasty i must say but i didn't dare try the intestins or anything like that, although they are considered a delacasy, none of us could bring ourselves to try. Having had a long day hiking and having another 5-6 hours again the next day we all went to bed as the locals continued drinking their very strong rice whisky (homebrew!) We woke up the next morning to the sounds of the sacrificing of a pig.....that would be part of their blessing ceremonie that we got to witness after breakfast. Every neighbour around the village go over to each others home blessing the familly and the home for the upcoming year, they pray and bless each other using white string and tying on your wrist like a bracelet, to be kept on for at least three days after or till it falls off. The familly in which we stayed the night blessed us all for safe travels and health, we were all very touched by this, what a wonderful experience to partake. They then feast on the sacrificed pig and wash it down with some more Whisky....all before 11am, very impressive!! We thanks them and leave them to their celebrations as we cary on to the waterfalls for a wash and lunch and trek through the jungle to the neighbouring village of the Lahu tribe. Only having the oppertunity here to walk around and compare a bit of the lifestyle where it seems there's more havesting and agriculture because of the location of the hilltribe. Still desplaying the simple life, we get picked up here and taken back to Pai where Chris and I meet up with the girls, tired and longing for a shower we star our overnight journey to the Laos border....
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