Adventures in Chiang Mai

Editor's Pick Award

Our Editors awarded this travel blog entry for providing relevant information that may be useful and inspiring for other travelers.

Adventures in Chiang Mai

January 27 – 31, 2007

Having woken up to the realization that we may have been had by a tout and a travel agency, we embarked on our trip to northern Thailand with a bit of trepidation. What would await us on this trip?

Our trip started out quite well. The overnight bus to Chiang Mai was more comfortable and better serviced than night buses we had taken in Turkey or Kenya. We got blankets and neck pillows for the night and a free congee break at a restaurant at 11:00 pm. So far, so good!

After a short nap in our guesthouse to recover from our overnight trip, the family humored me by tagging along to the Royal Flora Show 2006. Free shuttle buses took us and hundreds of others (all Thais, as Lonely Planet hadn’t written up this event so very few other tourists around) to the massive grounds built for this event. It was a flower show to end all others; an Expo of sorts, with displays from many other countries, including a real rubber plantation with demonstrations of the whole rubber making process. This event was staged primarily as a 60^th anniversary tribute to the King of Thailand who is very much revered by his subjects. It is touching to see how the Thais honor their king, but we have come to understand why. He and the royal family have worked diligently over the years to improve the living conditions of the disadvantaged in Thailand and to improve the social, economical and ecological aspects of this country. We learned of his assistance to the northern hill tribes in developing sustainable avenues of income from cash crops other than opium and has generally increased their quality of life. Back to the flower show…it was beautiful! The most extravagant and interesting floral display we have ever seen.

The next adventure was to be a two day trek into the mountains to visit a hill tribe village. The first stop was to experience Thailand on the back of an elephant. We had our chance to ride camels, ostriches, horses and now elephants. What we discovered was that elephants are metered just like taxis – they move about 10 meters per banana and won’t budge without that banana. Fortunately, there were filling stations every 50 meters where one could top up on bananas and sugar cane for 20 Baht and thus, we did eventually reach our destination.

After the elephants, we were dependent on our own two feet to move us up the mountain towards the village where we were to overnight. They don’t call them hill tribes for nothing; the grades were equal to or steeper than those we experienced in the Alps. Our training there came in handy. Waterfalls and bamboo forests made the hike enjoyable, and we eventually reached a lovely Thai bamboo house built on stilts on the edge of the mountain. This was to be our abode for the night. It was exciting to roll out our mats for the night after a delicious meal cooked by our guide, but the excitement wore off as the temperature dropped and we spent most of the night shivering and waiting for the dawn and the warm sun. Visiting the hill tribe showed us the amazing fortitude of these people, subsisting on very little and eking out a difficult life from fairly difficult growing conditions.

The hike down the mountain was long and steep. A breakfast of white toast and bad coffee didn’t sustain us for long. We were happy to finally arrive at our lunch destination. Thai food is good; especially if you remember to request the cook to go easy on the chili! The best was yet to come, however.

Vaguely, we were aware of the fact that we were to stop for river rafting. We didn’t realize, however, that the rafts were just a bunch of bamboo poles tied together and that the rafting guides were out to make this an experience we’ll never forget. Moments after leaving the dock, our two rafts were in fierce competition to get each other as wet as possible. Our guides whipped their poles into the water with such force, creating fountains of river water over all of us. This in addition to passing through various sets of rapids had us all soaked to the bone in no time and screaming with glee. I did fear for my husband’s life, however, as David was tossed off the back of the raft where he was poling and landed right in the middle of the rapids. As our raft rushed away, I saw him struggling to gain footing in the rushing water. Fortunately, he was rescued by the raft behind us and I still have my hubby (although limping from a bad bruise on his thigh).  Memorable it was!

Back in Chiang Mai, we had a day to fill on our own. We figured the kids hadn’t had much schooling recently and it was time to devote some quality time to school. Thus, we enrolled the 4 of us in an all day Thai cooking school. Along with about 16 other people we had a tour of the market to buy ingredients and then set about learning the art of making such wonderful dishes as Pad Thai, Tom Yum soup, spring rolls, green curry chicken, and mango sticky rice. The fireworks of the show were reserved for the chicken and cashew stir fry where each participant was expected to generate pyrotechnics using a flaming wok. Decidedly unnerving for most of us! We are now wondering how we can re-create this delicacy at home without burning our house down or setting off the fire alarms. David is now in the process of designing his outdoor flaming wok kitchen. I think that my fire fighter cousin, Martin, will be the first guest we’ll try this dish out on.

We’ll never know if the friendly ‘teacher’ was a tout for the travel agency or not. It doesn’t matter. Chiang Mai has been a fun-filled 4 days for us and thus it was good value for the money.