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Published: July 22nd 2009
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The first three weeks of summer holidays I spent in Thailand with my Belgium friend, Sophie. We met around 1am in Bangkok, at her friend Vincent's apartment. We spent only 2 days in Bangkok as I had already been and Sophie had two days at the end of our trip, so we spent the time touring the neighbourhood where Vincent lives, Suhkumvit (I appologize for any spelling errors when it comes to place names), took the boat up the Klongs, went to the reclining Buddha, and shopping on Khao San Road.
Our first destination of the trip was to Chiang Mai. We arrived late, and met another Vincent (this one from France), who asked to share a taxi with us from the airport to the city. Vincent had been travelling for 10 months in various parts of the road, and spent most of his time camping in tents and catching his own fish for food. Vincent was very..."earthy." There was nowhere for Vincent to camp in Chiang Mai, and, as it coincidentally turned out, the guest house we turned up at only had a room with three beds, so we ended up splitting the cost with him, so we would
each only have to pay about $1.50 for the room. We went for drinks at a truck club (a van converted into a bar that drove away for Buddha Days and never returned), and realized Vincent was a little weird. Paranoid and a little tipsy, Sophie and hid our valuables in my travel pillow and slept with one eye open. We woke up with no problems and felt just a wee bit guilty for having assumed the worst, although I suppose caution is better than anything.
Adventure number one behind us, our time in Chiang Mai was spent visiting temples, taking a delicious (but spicy!) cooking course, and riding bikes for about 8-10km into the country to visit temple ruins. Chiang Mai was hot n' sweaty, but beautiful, with pretty, little lush-green hills and long, curving streams and rivers. The ride to the temple ruins was particularly memorable. It was so quiet in the country, and everyone waved and said hello with big (and often toothless) grins. Horses ran freely (emphasis on ran...I walked by one it almost charged at me!), and things felt almost ridiculously rustic/idyllic.
From Chiang Mai we made our way up further north, to
Chiang Rai. Chaing Rai sits in the Golden Triangle between Myanmar/Burma and Laos, and if I found Chiang Mai beautiful, Chiang Rai is absolutely stunning. The earth there is this bright red colour, and it jolts your eyes when you see it, particularly when you catch a glimpse of it underneath pockets of green jungle. If I thought Chiang Mai was hot, Chiang Rai was positively steamy. We slid off the partially air-conditioned bus and melted into puddles within a minute of waiting for our songtaw. We found our hotel courtesy of a friendly Swedish couple and their adorable child and went to explore the city. We booked a trek for the following day and spent the night in the lively night market, eating yummy stall food and watching strange but entertaining performances on-stage.
Our trek the following day was a definite highlight of the trip, but initially, I was hesitant. All over Chiang Mai (and Chiang Rai) were advertisements for these silly-looking and exploitive tours to visit "traditional" hill tribe villages, but they looked and sounded more like tourist traps that made a mockery of the hill tribe traditions and festivals. I was worried that the trek we
booked would be the same, particularly when we arrived at the tourist elephant park. Poor elephants! Chained up so tourists could ride them up and down the hills. They looked hot and uncomfortable, even if I risk sounding anthropomorphic. Most of all they looked sad. We skipped the ride and hestitantly continued on our journey, led by Mr. Apichat of the Akha River House....and thankfully, the rest of the trek was amazing. Apichat led us (myself, Sophie, and a couple also from Belgium) through brilliant green rice paddies (a large leech fed off my blood for probably a good half an hour until I found him leeching his way into my sock), up hills, over rocks, and through hill tribe villages. Unlike the tours we had seen advertised, however, these people were simply working (farming rice or vegetables) in their regular clothes, and going about their daily business. Apichat was eager to discuss how most tourists don't want to see that these people aren't always in their festival gear, and while yes, sometimes they do celebrate in costume, they are on average not dressed in this way. He said most people want to see them decked out and fancy, even
if it is just for show. We ended our hike at the top of a mountain with stunning views of the valleys and hills, in a Lahu village. The whole thing housed about 40 families, each with their own thatched house and sows and chickens living under each house. It would have been very rustic save for the solar panels outside each dwelling--very conservative, modern, and green! We had tea and fruit before hiking down to our awaiting truck.
From Chiang Rai we flew to Krabi Province, spending one night in Ao Nang before catching a ferry across to Ko Phi Phi Don on very rough seas. We instantly took a great dislike to Phi Phi because of the cramped town, filled with tourists and touts, and the dirty beach on the far side. Luckily, Sophie met a woman who told us about Hat Yao, a 25 minute walk from the town, so we ventured forth and discovered a beautiful stretch of white sand with virtually no visitors and eager resorts low on guests. We immediately reserved a room and left the next morning by long tail boat. We spent the following 8 days diving (a few dives with
poor visibilty due to the storm, but a great final dive where I saw a sting ray, a leopard shark, an enormous eel, and a family of lion fish), snorkelling, lying in the sun, and meeting people. Oh yes, and eating....lots of eating. We were both extremely sad to leave behind our little beach and the people we got to know (including Sophie's new Burmese boyfriend 😉 ). We flew back to Bangkok where we parted ways...and now I'm leaving to Canada in just a few minutes. I'll post pictures as soon as I can.
Over and out.
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Victoria
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I can't wait to go back!
Next time I'm definitely going to Hat Yao and Chiang Rai too - I haven't been before! Can't wait to see you!