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Published: March 28th 2011
Friday 28th January 2011 When we arrived at the Green Tulip Guest House we sought advice from one of the owners who booked us on a 2 day trek with elephant riding, a home-stay, and white water rafting + a cooking course the day after we got back all for just £35 each – we thought this was a bit of a bargain.
Taking a walk along the north side of town visiting the temples, we realised that we are a bit temple’d out! It doesn't take too long when surrounded by many modern style temples with large gold buddhas – mainly constructed out of concrete.
In the evening we visited the night bazaar but it was, once again, very touristy with the same clothes and knick-knacks you can pick up in Bangkok (although at a fraction of the price). We bought ourselves a corn-on-the-cob each from the food section and wandered before making our way back through the city gate home.
Saturday 29th January 2011 For the first hour of our days trekking we were whisked out to the forest in a large tuk tuk with our companions for the next few days;
Nimrod, Meirav, Kez, Jenny, Freddie, Yanna & Eva. Unlike many awkward starts that can be experienced when you meet new people, we all chatted the entire time and it seemed as if it was going to be a great group.
Before getting too far out of town we stopped to talk to the tourist police – an English guy with a northern accent stepped in and gave a quick lecture about the perils of taking drugs, drinking in public and riding mopeds without a helmet (something that is seen in abundance everywhere we turned). He asked if anyone was carrying drugs (as the penalties are very severe – sometimes the death penalty!) and said smile if you’re not – he worded this question in such a fashion that it didn’t quite make sense and we all smiled nervously.
Our next stop was the Elephant ride. We had all been really excited about this, but when we turned up we were disappointed in the way the Elephants were handled. They all had chains on their ankles and necks (this is quite common at night to stop them wandering off and getting hurt but during the day it just seemed
cruel). It was a ride of mixed emotions with the enjoyment of being so close to the elephants spoiled by the football kit clad mahout with his mobile phone glued to his ear who kept hitting the elephant in the face with a hooked stick... Even though we had started off last, behind the entire group we had quickly overtaken everyone (including Nimrod & Meirav whom had our camera) and sped off down the hill only to wait there for 15 minutes doing nothing while the others caught up.
At the end of our ride our Mahout snatched the entire bunch of bananas, that Joanne had bought to feed the Elephant, out of Richards hand and gave them all to it himself... Joanne was really disappointed by this and tried to get him to stop so she could feed the Elephant her remaining solitary banana, but the mahout stormed off. When our guide found out what had happened he got Joanne 5 entire branches of bananas which she fed all of the other Elephants with!
After a veggie fried rice lunch we finally began the 4 hour trek up to the lodge for our home-stay. We climbed continuously
up a tall hill aptly named by our guide “oh my Buddha”. When we finally reached the top it appeared it wasn’t a home-stay at all, in-fact, we were in a big open hut with mats for beds and the village was a full 5 minutes down the hill completely out of sight. Once again – we were somewhat disappointed by this revelation, but the impromptu slumber party was good fun and we had a great night continuing to get to know our companions.
Sunday 30th January 2011 Up early for the 2nd day of our trek, we were relatively well rested, although very cold, and actually found it was warmer when we finally wandered outside into the morning sun.
After breakfast we trekked down to a waterfall where we got into the freezing water and enjoyed a massage by the powerful jets of water. From here we continued down the almost impossible path to the white water rafting area... We split into two rafts, joined by a couple of people from a Thai tour group, and enjoyed the rafting that was wilder than we had expected and much more fun than the rafting in New
Zealand being with a group who were all competent.
At the end of the white water rafting we changed onto a Bamboo raft, however it seemed to be sinking under our weight and we all drifted down the river sat down with the water up to our waists... Joanne tried to stand up at one point but was ordered back down again!
In the evening we met back with the gang for a drink at “Julie’s hostel” followed by a trip to the Sunday night craft market – this market was far more interesting than the usual ones with many hand crafted items for sale- Joanne bought a very large makeshift wedding ring with various coloured stones jutting out in all directions. We lost Kez after a while and while looking for her bumped into Ryan, Georgie, Hanna & Russ, a few of her friends from the bar... we had a quick street food meal with them before heading back to our meeting place where we re-grouped and went to a rooftop bar with Kez and the others, but we only stayed for one drink as we had another early start.
Monday 31st January 2011 One of our favourite activities in our entire world trip was the cooking course at Siam Rice. Starting off at a fresh food market, we were shown lots of different spices and vegetables and told about their uses within Thai cooking. There were ready made red & green curry pastes to buy and lots of varieties of herbs and spices that we’d never seen at home. Guy & Charlotte, an Israeli/Dutch couple chose most of the same recipes as us (we were allowed to choose 1 recipe each from 6 categories and had decided to split the recipes between us so we would learn more dishes).
Richard chose Spring Rolls, Spicy Glass Noodle Salad, Hot & Sour Soup, Chicken & Cashew Nut Stir Fry, Green Curry and Sticky Rice with Young Coconut for desert while Joanne cooked Pad Thai, Green Papaya Salad, Hot & Creamy Soup, Sweet & Sour Prawns, Red Curry with Pineapple and Sticky Rice with Mango desert.
What hit us most, was not only the simplicity of cooking dishes that tasted like they’d come from the best restaurant, but that most of the dishes contained such a similar base of ingredients, so that once they’re
in our cupboard we can cook what we want without having to rush to the supermarket every time.
Halfway through the day we were taught how to cut a flower out of carrots... this was very time consuming but really made us feel like professional chefs.
In the evening we got a mini-bus towards the border with Laos and stayed at a random guest house on route to the border crossing Chang Kong, although it was 2am by the time we got there.
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Mark
non-member comment
Hit & miss in places
but all n all sounds like you had a good time, plus learnt how to cook!