Jungly Adventures in Chiang Mai

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Made it here on the overnight bus trip with no problems. Day 1 we visited a couple more temples, at one we discovered the excellent "monk chat", where we sat at a table with 2 monks chatting for an hour, the idea being that they could tell us a bit about buddhism and being a monk and they got to practice their English, but we ended up talking about all sorts of random things!

Had a thai massge, it cost the equivalent of about 2 quid each for an hours, the best 2 punds I have ever spent! The first half was reflexology and foot/lower leg massage, then shoulders and back. They pull all your fingers and toes out of the sockets, poke and hit you in all differnent ways and bend your arms into all sorts of angles - sounds odd but it felt heavenly! We intend to head back for a full body one very soon! (though I will be supervising Chris's massage lady to see just how full this means!)

Chiang Mai is way nicer than Bangkok, much more pretty and peaceful and nicer to walk around in. Unfortunately for me though the place is full of stray dogs wandering the streets! 

The main reason for coming up here to Chiang Mai was for a 3 day trek in the Northern Thai jungle, and it has been fantastic. We had a brilliant group - a couple from Belgium, a girl from Oz, 2 guys from Holland, a couple from Hungary and Norway, a guy from Germany, and our hilarious Thai guide who went by the name of Jackie Can because his hill tribe name was about 30 letters long!

The first part of the trip was an elephant trek which was great fun but with some concerning moments! It was odd stepping on the elephants head to climb aboard and at first I was quite worried that the metal seat thing on its back would topple off as it was attaced quite precariously with a few ropes! Our 'phant was quite greedy and kept poking our legs with its trunk to scrounge more bananas, which it just oovered up with his trunk! The most hilarious thing was when another elephant stuck his trunk in Chris's crotch looking for a banana!! Rode through the jungle and along a river then back to base for lunch.

From there we set off on foot into the jungle - In a nut shell the main trek involved walking through the jungly mountains for an hour or two then stopping for a swim at a beautiful waterfall, then walking again to the next one, nothing too strenuous! The first night we stayed in a hill tribe village - beatifully constructed wooden cabins overlooking the lush green mountains all the way to the horizon - and the second in a hut right in the jungle by a huuuge waterfall.  We were cooked for and the food was great, it was lovely eating by candlelight and chatting about all sorts.

Much hilarity occurred when 5 of the thai tribesmen initiated a drinking game called "007 bang", whenever you lost a round one of them drew on your face with a finger full of thick, greasy charcoal from the bottom of the cooking pot! We played until we all looked like gorillas.

We were supposed to be doing some bamboo rafting but there were a couple of big storms (saw some amazing lightening strikes at night) so the river was too dangerous - indeed, on the last morning we awoke to find that the waterfall we had been playing around in the night before was now a raging pool of white water!Back in Chiang Mai, freshly washed and dried, our group met up for dinner at the night market.

On our last full day in Chiang Mai Chris and I along with Evelyn and Jeroen became conousoirs of Thai food as we did a one day Thai cookery course! First thing we were picked up and taken to the market to get our produce, then we spent the day being taught to cook Thai style learning step by step how to make such dishes as pad thai noodles, spring rolls, thai green curry, thai shrimp soup, and bananas in coconut cream. We ate as we made each one so by the end of the day were well and truly stuffed! Chris and I finished the day with a stroll through the night bazaar.

Today we have a few hours to kill before we begin our epic journey down to the beach islands - overnight bus to Bangkok tonight and spend the afternoon there, then another overnighter to Surat Thani, then jump onto a boat for a couple of hours to get to Koh Pha Ngan......To be continued!