Chang Mai - elephants, Wats and rivers

Chang Mai

Another night train took us to Chang Mai in the north of Thailand. A much smaller city than Bangkok, but very nice to walk about with lots of temples and Wats, a great night market and some good bars.

We booked into a good guesthouse, that worked out at about 4 euro a night, bargain, and had a walk about the city before heading on a 2 day jungle treck with a group from the hostel.  Another good mix on this trip with 3 Mexicans, an American lady, and a German couple. The first Mexicans we've met on the trip so it was nice to learn abit about Mexico!

The first day started with a couple of hours driving broken up by a trip to a nice waterfall, hot springs and lunch in a little place at the side of a road. After this we had a 4 hour strenuous treck into the jungle to a little tribal village where we stayed the night in a wooden treehouse, on the floor under a mosquito net and a pile of blankets. Even though we saw lightbulbs and hot water pipes, we were made to believe they had no electricity so we ate dinner by candlelight (for authenticity) and the Thai guides played guitar and sang us a few of their favourite Thai folk songs...

The next morning started with another hour long treck followed by an elephant ride through the river, this was so much fun. Our elephant was 14 years old and called Mamasca. Up close the elephants have the toughest skin with little random black hairs popping out....very funny! The trainer was a miniture Thai man who sat on the elephants head while we sat on a little wodden seat for two on her back....could have defo done with a cushion,after about an hour and a half we were happy to dismount!

After this was where the trip took a turn for the worse..the next part was supposed to be bamboo rafting down the river. So we were all given a life jacket and put onto two make-shift bamboo rafts, along with our belongongs, and told to stand up and balance as the raft floated down the river. What we didn't know was that we would be going down white water rapids...

Next thing we were negotiating rapids in standing, sometimes told to quickly sit and dangerously, narrowly missing groups of rocks. After an hour of this we were all starting to tire when suddenly our raft turned side-ways in a powerful rapid and got stuck in a large rock, semi- breaking in half and leaving us clinging on for dear life!!! The other raft had disappeared out of sight . So as we were sinking the guide shouted at us to get off the raft, even though we had cameras etc.in our hands, and swim to a nearby rock. Seems like an easy task but not with high water pressure and slippery rocks! The poor German girl panicked and started crying and she was hard to console with no speaking english! Eventually we got to the safety of a nearby large rock (all 5 of us) and had to wait while the Thai guides tried to save the raft, diving under it and using all their power. After about 45 minutes it became obvious that the raft wasn't going to survive.Then the guides took out their knifes and hacked it apart.

So the panic really set in as the remains of the raft shot off down the river and we were left perched on a rock in the middle of the jungle. Luckily we used bamboo poles to get our bags to the edge of the river without soaking them. Then we had to get to land and treck through thick jungle along the river side for another hour back to safety! The thoughts of knowing about the poisonous snakes, leeches and spiders was more threatening than anything that happened, but we were traumatised all the same. A seriously bumpy van ride got us back to the safety of the guesthouse, so we all headed out for a few beers to relax.

The next day we went to complain to the lady who ran the tours, who turned out to be an Irish Woman married to a Thai guy. She was a total weapon who didn't give a fiddle, but we got 50% of the money back, so that got us a nice meal, a thai massage (amazing) and our bus tickets to Laos....

Nest stop Laos.............

Sorry problem with flickr and realtravel at the moment the photos are not linking between the sites. For those who cannot wait check out the below link.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickandsuzy/sets/72157612822112460/