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Published: August 30th 2008
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I have just returned to Bangkok after 6 days up in Chiang Mai, in the North of Thailand. I caught the sleeper train up there and the tourist bus back. I loved the train, there is something so great about catching a train at 10pm and sleeping until you arrive at your destination the following day, if only planes had lie down beds. The bus on the other hand was a bit of a drag, seats like an aeroplane and despite it having airconditioning I only got about 3 hours sleep!
In Chiang Mai I headed into the jungle for a 3 day, 2 night trekking tour. I was joined in my trekking group with 6 Spanish people and 2 from the Netherlands. Our tour guide was Kan, a great guy from Chiang Mai.
The first day we went to a local market where Kan picked up all the supplies we needed (as he was cheif chef as well). It gave us all a chance to try some tropical fruit that I had never seen before, including dragon fruit. It was delicious and had the stall holders laughing a lot becasue we kept going back for more.
From
the market we headed to the Mok Fa waterfall for a swim. It was a very picturesque waterfall, but also makes you realise that NZ is lucky to have such clean clear water. The best part was that the water was significantly warmer than any NZ waterfall I have swum in.
After our swim and a bite for lunch we trekked into the jungle for about 1.5 hours to a Karen Hilltribe Villiage. When we arrived it started raining (this being a bit of a theme of the three days). We stayed in a cool wooden house on stilts, and had a chance to talk to all of the villiagers who spoke english. The villiage was set amongst the jungle and they were growing rice in many fields around the villiage. The rice fields were a vibrant green compared to the darker green of the jungle.
The next day we set out again in the rain for a 3 hour trek through rice fields and jungle to the Elephant Camp. The rain stopped for several hours in the middle of the day and made for hot work when trekking. At the Elephant Camp we had lunch and spent
a couple of hours with the elephants, taking lots of photos and even getting to bath them. They are great big gentle giants, very different from the aggressive threatening feel of the African Elephants. Just as the next rainstorm kicked in we got on to our elephants and had a 1.5 hour trek to another villiage. It really bucketed down so again don't have great photos of riding the elephants. This trek was much better than my last one, longer, and the elephants took a path that seemed like it would be impossible for such a large animal. They truely are amazing.
The second night we were SOAKING wet and stayed in a villiage that was not as nice as the first night, but this is adventure travel so who needs dry clothes. We had a small "fiesta" in the evening with singing and dancing from each country, it was very funny.
Our final day saw us riding down the river on bamboo rafts for 3 hours. They were about 4-5m long and made entirely of bamboo. I really enjoyed this, having a great love of anything water sport related. I even had a turn at staring the
raft, which I was terrible at but it was a lot of fun, and kept me warm during yet another tropical downpour.
This bought us to the end of our three days, but we did reunite that night for dinner at a local Chiang Mai resteraunt.
My other activities in Chiang Mai included visiting many temples and doing a one day cooking course. For the cooking course I spent a whole day eating Thai food. It was great. I made Tom Yum, Spring Rolls, Green Curry, Pad Thai, Mango and Sticky Rice and Banana's in Coconut Milk. Luckily they let me take away the Pad Thai and Banana's, otherwise I may have exploded. I got a cook book to take with me so watch out for some Thai Cooking when I am finally reunited with a kitchen.
Chiang Mai was a great city with a far more arty feel than Bangkok. I really enjoyed my 6 days there, but it is time to move on, so my next trip is 6 days in Northern Vietnam. I am flying out for Hanoi tonight.
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Jan
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great stuff jo
Sounds as though Thailand has been great jo look forward to hearing about further travels jan