Chiang Mai
We flew up to the jungle city of Chang Mai and after the usual fun finding a guesthouse we decided to enrol on a cooking course at 'The Best Thai Cooking School'. After eating so much great food here we wanted to be able to make some at home. Despite Hollands earlier misgivings about cooking, this was a really cool course with a crazy guy called Perm teaching the class and making jokes. It was a hands on course and we all got our own stove and the chance to try 'adventure cooking' which means cooking over a huge flaming wok. We were so stuffed by the end of the day as we got to eat all the food we made but somehow we still managed to find the energy to walk to Chang Mai's huge night market and haggle with the locals for some souvenieurs.
the next day we set off on a two day jungle trek staying overnight at a hill tribe village. We started off by visiting the 'Longneck tribe' so called because they stretch their necks using metal rings from the ages of 5 unil 30 adding a new ring every year until their necks are abnormally long. We then joined the rest of our trekking group to do some elephant riding. Unfortunately as one of the elephants was ill we were told if we wanted to ride the elephants we wouldn't be able to trek with the rest of the group, so we opted for a quick ten minute ride rather than the normal hour ride so we could stay with the group.
The trek was arduous, starting in the midday sun we were all sweating heavily after just a few minutes, the path was steep and for the first 3 hours continually uphill, we also didn't want to stop too long for breaks as that was when the mosquitios swooped in for a feast of 'white legs'. We finally arrived at our destination only to realise it wasn't as remote as we had thought - in fact a main road runs straight past it, however we descended into a valley where all we could see was beautiful forested mountain and could almost imagine we were miles from civilisation. We all stayed in a bamboo hut that night, had our showers in a nearby waterfall then we stayed up late drinking homebrew thai whisky and chatting to our guides.
The next day we set off for some more demanding trekking, this time the walk was broken up by a visit to a georgous double waterfall which you could jump into from some rocks about 7m above if you dared. Holland jumped several times into the frothing pool of death, but Becky decided not to yet still managing to badly bang her knee slipping on some lower rocks.
We then trekked for another hour to the start of a short stretch of water we were to white water raft. Our guide was like a drill sargent, yelling orders and telling us off the whole way whilst steering us into every rock he could, we bravely paddled on, scared to stop while the other raft laughed and joked with their guide and rainbows and bunnies seemed to hang in the air above their raft. After the white water rafting we did a short bamboo raft to get to the pick up point where we would be taken home, stinky, wet, exhusted but happy. It was an awesome trek and we met some cool Scotish guys who we plan to travel through Laos with.
We spent one more day in Chiang Mai enjoying the atmosphere and relaxing with our new friends Pam and Rob and went off to sleep that night not realising it would be 3 long days before we would be at our first stop in Laos
the next day we set off on a two day jungle trek staying overnight at a hill tribe village. We started off by visiting the 'Longneck tribe' so called because they stretch their necks using metal rings from the ages of 5 unil 30 adding a new ring every year until their necks are abnormally long. We then joined the rest of our trekking group to do some elephant riding. Unfortunately as one of the elephants was ill we were told if we wanted to ride the elephants we wouldn't be able to trek with the rest of the group, so we opted for a quick ten minute ride rather than the normal hour ride so we could stay with the group.
The trek was arduous, starting in the midday sun we were all sweating heavily after just a few minutes, the path was steep and for the first 3 hours continually uphill, we also didn't want to stop too long for breaks as that was when the mosquitios swooped in for a feast of 'white legs'. We finally arrived at our destination only to realise it wasn't as remote as we had thought - in fact a main road runs straight past it, however we descended into a valley where all we could see was beautiful forested mountain and could almost imagine we were miles from civilisation. We all stayed in a bamboo hut that night, had our showers in a nearby waterfall then we stayed up late drinking homebrew thai whisky and chatting to our guides.
The next day we set off for some more demanding trekking, this time the walk was broken up by a visit to a georgous double waterfall which you could jump into from some rocks about 7m above if you dared. Holland jumped several times into the frothing pool of death, but Becky decided not to yet still managing to badly bang her knee slipping on some lower rocks.
We then trekked for another hour to the start of a short stretch of water we were to white water raft. Our guide was like a drill sargent, yelling orders and telling us off the whole way whilst steering us into every rock he could, we bravely paddled on, scared to stop while the other raft laughed and joked with their guide and rainbows and bunnies seemed to hang in the air above their raft. After the white water rafting we did a short bamboo raft to get to the pick up point where we would be taken home, stinky, wet, exhusted but happy. It was an awesome trek and we met some cool Scotish guys who we plan to travel through Laos with.
We spent one more day in Chiang Mai enjoying the atmosphere and relaxing with our new friends Pam and Rob and went off to sleep that night not realising it would be 3 long days before we would be at our first stop in Laos
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