Chiang Mai

25th September 2006

We arrived in Chiang Mai at 6.30am after a 12 hour bus journey through the night, which was not as bad as expected. The guide books tell you that travel in Thailand is horrendous and dangerous but we had a pretty pleasant and efficient experience.

As usual, it was sold to us as a luxury bus, which was as usual slightly misleading. We travelled with some nice girls from St. Neots (Nikki and Sarah) who are travelling for 9 months all over the world. They are staying in Chiang Mai so hopefully we will see them again.

We were also forced to endure conversation with a very boring man who we named Spong Bob.  I never found out his real name we didn’t like to encourage him too much, as he was very, very boring.

In his own strange and eccentric manner, he thought it appropriate to buy and wear a commemorative ‘Death Railway’ t-shirt. It literally said Death Railway and had a picture of the railway on it. It felt only one step away from an Auschwitz: Death Camp t-shirt. Unsurprisingly Sponge Bob told us he was an accountant.

Once in Chiang Mai we headed to Nice Place guest house (also rather misleading) which was pre booked for us as part of our 3 day trek. We went straight to bed and then celebrated with the first warm shower since our arrival in Thailand. It is quite a luxury to use an almost useless, dribbly effort of a shower after suffering freezing cold water for 5 days.

At dusk, we headed in to Chiang Mai old town to view their infamous night markets. These are tiny interconnected stalls running the whole length of one road. They sell anything and everything. The wooden hand carvings were absolutely amazing. There was a full sized mermaid with little connected fish carved in to huge piece of wood and submerged in a giant fish tank. It was so life-like and detailed. These people are incredibly talented. They sit on the floor carving in front of you. Sadly, it won’t fit in the old backpack.

To be expected, the stall owners are a little pushy. They begin their sales pater after about 4 seconds and watch your eyes carefully to see exactly what you are interested in. It is understandable but a bit of a put off. I was coaxed in to buying a wallet made of genuine fish scales, which sounds particularly random but is actually very nice.

We leave for our 3 day/ 2 night rural trek tomorrow at 9.30am. We leave our big backpacks at our hostel and use only a small day bag. We will be ehading further north to Pai, an area further north bordering Burma. Some of the other treks in other less remote areas have over 50 tourists on one trek at a time, with hostels at night and hot showers, ours will have only 12, we will sleep in local huts and may or may not be able to wash. The trek will meet 3 different genuine tribe groups who have inhabited the area for 400 hundred years. Should be interesting…

Chiang Mai: Pai trek 

We are finally back after what feels like the longest 3 days in the history of the world. A thoroughly rewarding experience however, after experiencing it, it is highly unlikely I will ever sign up for anything like that again in my lifetime.

Day 1

Collected at 9.30am and driven north to the jungle. We stopped at a market which emitted the worse smell in the entire world. We had a mooch and were accosted by elderly women selling hand-woven trinkets. The women chewed on tobacco and their teeth were literally black. They walk the streets all day laden with their goods looking for tourists.

The market was jam-packed with everything you could think of; live snakes, fish splashing about in buckets, clothes, hair (actual hair), meat and air dried fish.  However the underlying smell (largely of the old fish) was rather off-putting.

With much relief we departed. We stopped in a village called Lahu for lunch, which had been cooked especially for us by the village people. As we pulled in to their village several children appeared from nowhere and ran after our bus, waving and being generally cute and pleasant. At Lahu we had the first of our many, many rice dishes. This particular beauty was with onion and tomato rice.

The children crowded round us while we ate, trying to sell us little bracelets. They took us on a tour of the village which consisted of about 10 huts, lots of dogs, chicken and pigs oh and not forgetting their huge satellite dish and tv. Essential item.

Out of sight of the grown up villagers, the children were absolutely ghastly. They stole things from people’s backpacks, tried to hit some of the group with sticks and pick pocketed others. I couldn’t be bothered with them, so I sat with the older villagers who seemed more tolerant of our imposition on them.

Look at the nasty little one in green:

This is the first squat toilet I came in to contact with. It was horrific.

After lunch, we set off downhill on foot. The real hike began. I should point out that when booking this trek, I had expected a mild hike of approx 2 hours a day with maybe a bit of driving about in a jeep. I was basically sold on the rafting and elephant riding and had rather stupidly had not given much thought to the actual treking.

We walked, in full heat, unshaded for about 2.5 hours up and down steep inclines; this was a slight shock to the system. I was beyond out of breath, I felt like a 70 year smoker going at a pace beyond my ability.

I am in the rd hat, for easy identification:

Arrival at second village: Lisu.

We were given dinner soon after arriving and we were all pretty tired, except for the 3 Dutch people who were part of the Dutch army. We were given parsnip soup, rice and vegetable stir fry. I had hoped after all the energy I had exerted that I would be given something with a few more calories; but rice it was.

The children at the village were lovely and put on singing/dancing show for us in the evening, accompanied by music from the grownups. They taught us a dance which we had to perform back to them, for their own entertainment.  Then we taught them the  hokey kokey which went down a storm. They made us do it 3 times. ‘Put your whole self in’ was a particular hit.

We slept in a large wooden hut on stilts built onto the edge of a cliff. The hut consisted of several connecting rooms and was a little distance away from the main village. It came complete with a large bedroom for 12, lounge area, kitchen and outside toilet/shower (hose).

The whole area went pitch black at about 6.30pm. We stayed up and chatted amongst ourselves until about midnight, getting to know each other. Partway through the evening, we had a surprise visit from Dr.O the local ‘herbalist’ (read: dealer). He sold an opium pipe for 150 baht (about £2 pounds) which most of the others tried.

Unfortunately I got stuck sleeping next to the rubbish Dutch couple. Much to my delight, they were all over each other like dogs.

In the middle of the night we needed the loo. This was a short trek from the main hut. Out we went, alone, in total darkness, in the middle of the jungle. The toilet was a shack made of upright bamboo with a hole in the floor. It was a ‘squat-in-the-dark-and-hope-for- the-best-situation’. The floor was covered in everyone else’s piss and smelled pretty funky. Once back in bed there was a small light flickering around outside our bedroom and I was convinced it was a murderer. I shouted “Show yourself sir!” for some unknown reason and it has now become our catchphrase. Probably had to be there…

Day 2

We were woken to a delicious breakfast of onion omelette and three slices of dry toast. We began hiking at 10am for about 3 hours up and down steep inclines, slipping all over the place, in the baking heat. We arrived at a little village called Akra. We refreshed ourselves in the local waterfall, which was freezing cold, but welcomed by us all. Gill lost a flip-flop.

A short wander back to the village and lunch was waiting for us: super noodles with cabbage. Mmm! I hope I get to walk another 3 hours in the baking heat after eating that! Oh I do? Brilliant.

We hung around in the little village for a while, which was very picturesque, like an oriental little house on the prairie; butterflies everywhere, cats, dogs, pigs, horses and chickens.  A total of 5 little huts and a quaint stream running through it all. They even had a proper toilet which was by far the cleanest and least smelly we had come across.

After lunch we set off again and trekked for about 2 hours to get to the elephant camp, crossing several rivers on route. I was very grateful for my ugly trekking sandals – which were ideal. The girls all had trainers on and secretly envied my quick drying sandals.

Elephants: we sat on the elephants in pairs for about an hour as they walked us to the next village.  At the elephant village there was a little man selling doughnuts which Lizzie and I were distracted by, so by the time we’d finished with the doughnuts, there was only one elephant left left. We were disheartened and thought we had been left with the reject .We bemoaned the doughnut man distracting us by the promise of a sugar coma. Our elephant looked bored.

However, our elephant soon dispelled our worries and turned out to be a very lively male in a pack of all females!  He proceeded to march past all the other lady elephants and took the lead at the front. He went on his own random route (off piste) whenever he could, climbing up hills and smacking us over his head with big bamboo branches he had pulled from trees. Several times he sniffed us with his trunk, which he had curled up behind his head. He was gorgeous despite his very loud and smelly farts. We named him John.

After the elephant trek was over, we had a short trek up to the last village of the day, Karen.  This village was much fancier than the previous ones. The toilet was quite a trek from the main hut and so in the end, everyone just relinquished their pride and wee’d in the bushes next to the hut. It is amazing how you can go from western hygiene, to walking in other people’s urine, weeing on your own leg, having no loo roll, smelling like you have just done all the above – and not caring!

We had potato curry and rice for dinner – potatoes and rice. Imagine being served up potatoes and boiled rice at home for dinner. By this time we were seriously sick of the sight of rice. I was longing for meat.

We stayed up and sang songs, chatted and drank til about midnight again. As we had spent so much time together it began to feel like the 12 of us had known each other much longer. Everyone on the trek was so nice, with the exception of the fornicating Dutch couple. We slept like babies in the jungle and resented being woken up in the morning. To my relief, no one snored or maybe I was too shattered to notice, for once.

Day 3 of trek

We awoke to a more welcomed breakfast of boiled egg and slices of dry toast. We were just grateful it wasn’t rice.

They don’t break you in to the day’s trek gently, as soon as you’ve finished breakfast, it’s backpack on and up and down mountains again. Our guide for the day was Mr.Lee who was from one of the local hill tribe villages.  He shamed us all by doing the whole day’s trek in his bloody flip-flops, the occasional fag and no water!

Us girls decided to be head of the trek for the last day and walked at the front. This basically meant everyone else had to do it at our pace. We strolled casually, at a leisurely pace and could actually appreciate the amazing scenery as we walked.  It felt so much better. The boring Dutch couple kept moaning about us being slow.

After about 3 hours, we arrived at a slightly more build up village for a feast of: egg fried rice! By this point Gill couldn’t actually look at rice without dry heaving and she had to sit away from us while we ate. Despite being beyond sick of the sight of rice, I wolfed it down, as I didn’t know what ardous task they had in store for us next.

After lunch, much to our delight, we were shepherded down to the river and to go rafting. Lizzie and I shared a raft with Mr.Lee and another trekker called Victor. They steered the raft with long bamboo poles, a bit like punting. Unlike everyone else who stood the whole way, Lizzie and I thought sod it, sat down and were chauffeured down river.

Of the 4 rafts, ours was last. We got competative and shouted encouragement to Mr.Lee and Victor to overtake. They responded appropriately and overtook 2 rafts. When we got level to the Dutch couple on the front raft, we pushed them off in to the river.

Later, the Dutch raft caught up with us. The boyfriend jumped in the river and swam menacingly over to us with every intention of throwing us in. At this point Lizzie lost her shit, screaming and baring her teeth at him like a maniac. She has no recollection of shouting at the Dutch boy but I for one will never forget her particular barb:  “F*** off you F***ing Czech!” as the Dutch boy tried to shake our raft.  Inaccurate, but hilarious.

Unsurprisingly, the Dutch boy let go and swam back to his raft. I was very grateful of Lizzie’s enthusiastic approach, as the water was rather cold and brown. Victor later told me that he and Mr Lee had planned to throw both Lizzie and I in the river but the “Czech” event had made them change their minds.

That was the end of our 3 days in the jungle.

We all agree that we have never, ever done anything so challenging or physically demanding in our lives. We moaned the entire time, albeit half in jest. It feels like a major achievement for each of us, especially as we did it on about three grains of rice per day. I have personally vowed never to do anything like it ever again.

After the rafting we were driven back to our guest house. We are meeting up with everyone from the trek tonightto celebrate Gill’s birthday.

Chiang Mai is a very pleasant city, chilled out filled with low-key bars and restaurants,  where you can eat from 50p to £4. The only thing that does your head in is the constant barrage of women and children trying to sell you things as you eat. It is sad at first then becomes frustrating.

 

Gill’s Birthday

We went out for Gill’s 23rd Bday last night with the trekking guys. We also met 2 other English people by the pool in the day, Stuart and Rachel who also joined us.

We ate at a rustic but lively Tex Mex restaurant and then proceeded to get thoroughly drunk. We ended up in place which consisted of about 20 different open bars, circling a boxing ring. Some Thai guys were performing Thai boxing. We played some pool and generally had a really good laugh. Gill said it felt like she was just out with all her friends from home because you just bond so quickly with all the other travellers. Especially the solo travellers who are very open to meeting new people.

We got a rocknroll tuctuc back to Nice Place with a cd player and speakers attached to the roof. The driver played really loud eighties classic rock, like Wings, which we sang along to in true Brits abroad fashion.

We will be leaving for Laos tomorrow.

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