Chiang Mai & Chiang Khong:

January 30th, 2005 - February 3rd, 2005

Greetings from Chiang Mai...

We arrived here on the 30th of January after an amazing four days in Khao Sok National Park. Although we left bruised and battered from our jungle trek, our bodies were thankful for the exercise. So much so that we decided to do another trek here, just outside of Chiang Mai.

Our trek began with a stop off at a local market followed by a short view of a larger waterfall and some local hot springs. The real adventure began after that where our group of seven plus our guide named Tu (like the number) reached the 1000m mark on the local mountains.

We trekked through one Karen (a local tribe) village and continued through the mountains, finally reaching the village where were going to stay just before nightfall.

Our group was an eclectic mix including Jess and myself plus a Vancouver-based DJ and his girlfriend. A German named "Flo" who had been travelling for 9 months and a pair of Scotsmen, one who had the lead role in Lord of the Dance in Las Vegas for the past 4 years!

We all stayed in one room in the village's "lodge". We were warned it was going to be cold at night, but being proud Canadians, Germans, and Scots we scoffed at the idea of freezing in a Thai rain forest village. Sure enough, we froze our asses off overnight. My 1-pound sleeping bag good to eight degrees was no match for the damp cold.

Sleeping wasn't a large part of the night since the two Scots snored the night away and the DJ from VanCity puked out the window of the lodge during the night because of bad food! Ahhhh... what would a trek be without some adventure.

We departed early this morning and it didn't take long for the hot Thai sun to thaw us out. We hiked nearly an hour to an elephant camp where we got to watch the elephants bathe and then we "boarded" our elephants and they walked us down the river for about an hour - sometimes the elephants were in the river so deep that their full legs were in the water. Luckily, we didn't get wet.

The best part of the day took place after the elephants... that's when we embarked on our bamboo rafting trip (much different from the one we had done previously). 8 of us got on this raft and headed down the river through some real rapids. Four people sat at the front of the raft while our guide steered from the front and myself and the two Scotsmen steered from the back using bamboo poles. It was much harder than it looks and I even had my pole snap in half!

About midway down we crashed out on some rocks... it took us 20 minutes to try and lift the raft off the rocks and back onto the river. We made it and got to the shore for some much needed repairs. Major pieces of bamboo were breaking off and our raft was close to sinking by that point, but Two was masterful in tying it back together using bamboo-like string.

From there we were fine until the final bit of rapids when we got stuck. In an effort to dislodge the boat we lost James (one of the Scotsmen... the other was Jaime like me so it was easy to remember names). The raft took off and James tried to catch us while hanging onto his bamboo pole. The whole time our guide was yelling "Oh my Buddha" - his favourite expression and similar to us yelling "Oh my God." It was priceless. Finally James caught the raft and we pulled him back on board. And with that we safely made it down the river and to the end of our adventure.

Chiang Mai is an interesting place. Guest houses are plentiful and charge little, hoping to make their money by selling you treks and other travel services. We showed up and luckily found a decent place charging around $6 / night for a double room with fan and attached bathroom. They tried to push a trek on us right away, but we were able to defer a day. The next morning they were unsure if they had a room for us - they said the rooms were being saved for trekkers coming back (another ploy). I talked to the owner later in the day and she asked if I was a nice person! How does one respond to that? I told her I was... then started talking to her in French since she spoke French and most of the guests were French. That seemed to seal the deal as we were given another night! But that was it since it became clear we were not taking a trek with them...

In the end we took the trek that we did through a highly recommended company run by a Westerner... and that leads to how we found our place to stay tonight! We needed to get a bus arranged to get to the Laos border (where we go tomorrow morning). We set it up through a good travel agency and also arranged our two day boat trip from the Thai border to Luang Prabang in northern Laos. As part of the deal we had them save us a room for tonight - something most places will not do here (reserve rooms). So basically, we played the system here and are damn proud of it!

Other than playing the system, Chiang Mai was nice. We stayed in the heart of the old city, inside the town's moat. We took in a good majority of the main Wat's (temples) on our first day in town. It is easy to get around on foot (and healthier) so we walked all over the place. The day was also Jess's 26th birthday so we celebrated by going to a day spa for a 2-hour massage that was well needed to rejuvenate our bodies after our Khao Sok experience. The massage was 1-hour of tradition Thai massage to warm the body up and then 1-hour of an oil massage that we are more used to in Canada.

Less than an hour after our massage we attended a Thai cooking class at Baan Thai Cooking School (highly recommended) where we learned how to make 4 Thai dishes (www.cookinthai.com).

First we made spring rolls then a sweet & sour prawn soup. Our main course we Chaing Mai Noodles which was a spicy local dish. For desert we had sticky rice with mango. We did it with five other people and had a great time learning and having fun.

Speaking of learning, Chiang Mai is the "intellectual" city in Thailand where people come to learn - be it cooking, massage, or spirituality. Thus, there are a disproportionate amount of tripped out westerners wandering around like they have just found Nirvana.

One thing we missed out on was "Monk Chat" where you go to a Wat (temple) and chat with a monk in English about whatever. This way, they can learn English and you can learn about Buddhism or whatever you want to know from them. Otherwise, we took in all that we needed to in Chiang Mai - the trek, the Wat's, and the Night Bazaar (which was scaled down compared to the chaos in Bangkok - although the selection seemed nicer).

We leave tomorrow morning on a mini-bus to Chiang Khong which sits just across the Mekong river from Laos and their border town of Huay Xai. We will spend the night in Chiang Khong before crossing the border in to Laos and taking a 2-day 'slow boat' down the river to the city of Luang Prabang.

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