Chiang Mai part 1

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So we have certainly had a busy few days since we've been here in Chiang Mai. To begin with, pretty much as soon as we had began unpacking on arrival in our second hostel, a guy in our room asks Yoni if he's up for doing a bungee jump today. Yoni enthusiastically agreed. Great.....

So mid afternoon, Yoni, Faidi and I were driven by one of the hostel workers to the site. The traffic was heavy and we were all surprisingly very chilled out about doing the jump. We had a long chat with Siyad, our driver who was from Chiang Mai. We eventually arrived at the place and the jump looked just as high as expected. It was 50m, but looked far higher. The guy then chose me to go first! The workers were really good fun and made you feel pretty relaxed. However, the girl going before us completely bottled it and had to be pushed down. That didn't help the nerves. When you got to the top, the view into the mountains was unbelieable. All 3 of us made sure we didn't look down when it was our turn and we all jumped as soon as he said so. Both Yoni and I didn't say a word on the way down (we both think due to shock!). It was certainly a crazy experience. Massive adrenaline rush and the pace of the fall was huge. Yoni had asked to hit the water at the bottom and went splash head first with his go-pro camera connected. So from getting off the sleeper train in the morning with no plan, by the afternoon we had done a bungee jump and made a good friend from Jordan in Faidi.

The next day we woke up late and after a bit of table tennis in the hostel, we eventually decided to go to a Temple in the mountains for sunset. We went with Lucy who was staying in our room, Faidi and his two friends he'd met previously. The journey to the Temple was long and we took a 'toot toot' taxi up the bendy mountains. On arrival, after all the bends, I was feeling pretty sick! The Temple itself was really beautiful with a lot of gold Buddha's and many Monks around. However, after 15 mins we'd seen it all really and went to look at the incredible view of the city. We had missed sunset but the city lit up at night still was really an amazing view. After the journey down and again feeling travel sick, we went to the night market for a while and all got another massage. By this time we were hungry and the 6 of us met up with Adam and Ben (who we knew from home) to watch the Arsenal game. Although Arsenal frustratingly lost, we all decided to head out to the bars for a night out. The night ended up being a great night and we all had a lot of fun from start to finish. During the night, both Yoni and I even got a turn of going on a the back of a local girls scooter which was pretty exciting.

When we got up late the following morning, we decided to go zip wiring. The journey took around an hour and we went with Faidi, Lucy and an American girl from the hostel. The zip wiring was extremely fun and it was something similar I imagine to Go-Ape in the U.K. We all did well in it and everyone enjoyed themselves. By time it had finished and we eat and got back to the hostel (around 7pm), we were very tired and just chilled that night. Yoni ended up finally getting some sleep (he fell asleep at the computers in the hostel!) and we went to bed about 11pm. After a stop-start sleep, where someone in our room had a coughing fit throughout the night, we got up at 9.30am and again, along with Faidi and Lucy, made our way to the Tiger-Kingdom. This was a zoo like place where at the end you could enter a petting section where there were around 5 tigers. Only me and Faidi did the petting zoo part which, although the tigers seemed to be heavily sedated, was definitely a cool thing to do. With the last tiger we saw, the trainer was teasing him which led the tiger to jog towards us. At this point, Faidi and I made a huge run for it and my heart did stop for a second. But we survived and by lunchtime, the four of us went to do Quad Biking in the Jungle We had told the people on reception that we were all experienced quad bikers and had done it many times so we could attempt a much harder track (Not one of us had ridden a quad bike in our lives!). We were asked to each practice on the bike to prove we had done it before....

Well there were two bikes and Yoni and I paired up. The idea was we would rotate every 30 mins for the 3 hour ride. Yoni and I shared a bike and I went first in the practice run while Yoni sat behind me in the passenger seat. After honestly less than 5 seconds, I had driven into a tree, flipped the bike, myself and Yoni all on to the floor and before we knew it, all these Thai people came running towards panicking! That was to be the end of my quad biking career and Yoni successfully passed the practice run with me as his passenger. After a hugely nerve-wracking first hour, where we were just trying to stay on the bike and survive, Yoni got far more comfortable and confident with the bike and it started to become enjoyable and exciting. We climbed further and further up these rocky hills and made it to the top after an hour and half. The view from the top was insane and we took a short break where we chilled for a bit. As soon as the second half began, the track seemed less intense and aggressive and Yoni started to pick up the pace while I took in the amazing Jungle scenery. By the time we finished and arrived back, Yoni was driving like a pro quad-biker and I became more than happy to enjoy the ride from the passenger's seat. It had certainly been an enjoyable and successful day. We are now back at the hostel and after grabbing some dinner, we plan to go out tonight and have another good night!

We have booked a one night jungle trek for Thursday and by Sunday we are travelling further North to a place called Pi for 4 nights.

Go on Yoni's facebook for all the photos.

From Chiang Mai,

Sam and Yoni.

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Comments

[Dad]

Sounds brilliant boys and so well written too!