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Published: November 18th 2007
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After an overnight train ride from Ayutthaya, we arrived in Chiang Mai around 8am. We had bed in the air-conditioned train, quite nice and private after they put up the mattress and pull the curtain. However the train was quite shaky and noisy all the way through, also the aircon became a bit too much during night time, so I woke up numerous times.
We first went to the Gap's Guest House where I booked for 2 days trekking, stored our luggages there, and picked up by the trek company. After picking up all the members (3 of us, 3 French, 3 Koreans, 2 British), the truck were fully packed like a sardines in a tin. We first stopped at a local market, bought some fresh fruits, water and wondered around for half an hour before leaving to the Mountains. The road to the mountain was very bumpy and winding, we were thrown in all the directions, everyone became quite sick of the trip. After a long 2-3 hours drive, we finally had a rest in a Miao Village, it was almost in the original setting, but you only see a few of them wearing tranditional costumes. All of them
are very friendly, smiling at us. We saw some very beautiful roosters, a few kept in a bamboo cage, we were told these were the fighting roosters for gambling.
We continued a short drive to another town for lunch, it was simply fried rice with egg plus pineapple as fruit, prepared by our guides (Tony, Susan & Kang). After lunch, we had our first trekking of 8 km through the jungles. We carried our backpacker and the sleeping bag provided, we have packed lightly, so not hard to walk with that. We walked through many rice fields, saw buffalos, and a snake! Passed another Karen village (not the long neck one), some of the teenage boys were playing a volleyball like sport, but using a special bamboo made ball, they were very skillful. Around 5 pm, we arrived in another Karen village where we were staying overnight.
We were going to sleep in a village hut made of bamboo with roof covered with leafs. The bed was only a very thin met on the bamboo sheet with a mosequeto net, there were 7 "double/twin beds" in the hut.
As soon as we arrived, the guides started preparing for the dinner
(they carried most of the ingredients by themselves), after a long waiting, we were presented with very yummy three dishes and rice, followed by pineapple on a long table with candle. We all had a lot and found this the best meal ever, too hungry after the walk. After dinner, we sat around a campfire for a cup of tea. It was so peaceful under the sky in the valley.
Sleeping in the hut was not too bad until midnight when the temperature dropped and roosters started crowing. Everyone woke up half-sleepy because of the cold and noise. After a breakfast with toasts with jam & "butter" and again pineapple, we started the hardest steep uphill walking to the elephant camp, four adult and a baby elephants were waiting for us. We got on one elephant, Hannah & I sat on the chair and Chun on the neck directly, off we went, through the jungle on elephant back. It was so exciting, sometimes a bit scary when the elephant went down hill or crossed the creek. The baby elephant was among the adult ones, still clumsy at some steps. The elephants kept dropping wastes while they were walking, probably we
fed them too many bananas!! When we arrived, the photo of us on the elephant was already waiting for us, in a nice frame made of guess what? elephant poo! What a nice recycle.
After another steep and long walk we finally got to the river for bamboo rafting. It was a fun ride, although I got wet from head to toe, but enjoyed it totally. Another 1h easy drive, we arrived in Chiang Mai.
We stayed overnight in the Gap's Guest House, it was a lovely leafy and clean one, better and more interesting than a hotel, in my view. The whole house was set in a tropical garden, with nice decorations, our room is big, with full antique teak furnitures, including dressing table, chest, arm chairs and tea tables, with a bathroom and aircondition (you don't need the aircon during this time in Chiang Mai though). The vegtarian buffet dinner at 80B per person was awesome, there were about 8 dishes there, not really spicy, plus fruits, good value, again I really like the setting of the restaurant.
What to do for our aching muscle? No doubt, thai massage! There are a few places around the Guest House
to chose, we went to one, and had the full one for just 150B each, it was wonderful that after 1h, I felt so fresh!
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Hong
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Terrific trip
It's so exciting trip! I wonder how did you find this kind of trip with small group of people.