Chiang Mai and All That Jazz

Ok so we took the bus to Chiang Mai from Bangkok last Tuesday night. It wasn’t so bad actually. I was able to sleep and I met a really cool New Zealand girl who’d been traveling for ages. I may not ever see her again, which kinda sucks cuz she was really interesting, but such is the case with single-serving friends.

We arrived in Chiang Mai at 7 am and went to the Lanna Thai guesthouse. The room wasn’t ready yet so we ate breakfast, stored our backpacks and headed off to get bank accounts and Thai massages – definitely interesting. They massage everywhere and try to crack your back with their knees at the end. So we wobbled back to the guesthouse afterward, showered and passed out. Next we woke up, stumbled half asleep to the neighboring restaurant, Sweet Rain, ate lunch (it was nearly 5pm at this point) and wandered around the night market before heading back to the hotel for sleepy time.

The next day we walked around, got lost trying to find the center of the city. We took a cab to Chiang Mun Wat, which is the oldest wat in Chiang Mai. We ate lunch at Ray’s right next door. He’s a nutty Englishman who decided to pack up and move to Thailand 6 months ago after coming to the country every year for six years. Next stop was the Wat something or other and Wat Chedi Luang which is beautiful. (more pictures on facebook). Then we took a cab back to the hotel for some old fashioned relaxing and watching the degradation of the American economy on CNN World News.

Friday you go trekking!

Early Friday morning we started a trekking tour through the northern mountains of Chiang Mai in the Mae Tang area. It was incredible, to say the least. First we stopped at a butterfly and orchid farm, which was nice – just another random tourist attraction but interesting. Then we were off to trek. Lunch was fried rice with soy sauce aka the spiciest sauce I’ve ever had. So with mouths on fire and bellies full, we started our trek.

Although the trek was difficult and a fairly good length, the sights were beautiful and it was worth it. They told us it would be 3 hours and it definitely took us all day, maybe 4-5 hours or so. We stopped at a hilltribe, I think the Lisu, and had some tea-coffee. It was kinda like a mate. Then we continued until we reached camp at about five or six. We just chilled, while some of the guys played Thai football, which is like a cross between hacky sack and volleyball.

We ate dinner and spent half the night by the fire singing and drinking Chang beer. (yes there was a 7 11 even in the mountains! Of course it was a hut with a drawn-on sign, but still.) Here we played a thai drinking game and ended up with black grease from the bottom of the cooking pots and pans all over our faces! Afterward we made a beer tower of about 15/16 cans. It was 16 cans tall for about 3 seconds before finally falling over. One of the locals did it, praying or chanting as he placed each can on top (the tower was taller than he was!).

Saturday Adventure

We woke up early. A wheezing cat had slept next to me all night, cats just love me. No new mosquito bites, which was awesome. We trekked another hour or so to the elephant camp where we rode elephants through the river and jungle. Afterward we went to the Padong (Long Neck Karen) hilltribe, more like an exploitation of human suffering. Maybe they were real Padong, maybe not. Either way those rings are heavy. Supposedly the women wear them to prevent tiger bites from when they lived in Burma/Myanmar. Now it’s just tradition or a tourist attraction (meaning they do it so they can make a living off of tourists).

After lunch, there was an elephant show which I missed, but I’m pretty sure you can see the same at any zoo. Then we took a bamboo raft down the river. After we hiked to a waterfall and did some swimming or at least washed off some dust from our arms and legs. We thought our long day was done, but wait… there’s more. White water rafting. The drops were small, so no big deal. I did fall out of the raft though with another person. Pretty ridiculous, if you ask me. No harm done though. The Thai guys were quick to get me back up, despite my maniacal laughter. They kept telling us to pedal faster as we were approaching large rocks. Of course we listened, and every time smashed into the rock. It was like bumper cars, really. The rest of the way down consisted of water fights with the other raft and collecting our things to go back to Chiang Mai. Finally the day was done.

Aftermath

Alison and I got our stuff and switched guesthouses and were grateful for our well deserved showers. We then met up with some of the people from the trip at the Red Lion. Had some drinks and dinner and went to Bubble, a Thai discothèque. There we saw some strange things. Several guys and gals we doing some funky dancing and acted as if they were on drugs. It was very bizarre. And they were around 40 or 50 years old. Random swing flips and smashed bodies. All and all quite a show. After, the club started getting more and more crowded. Exhausted from our trip, we didn’t stay too long and went to bed fairly early.