We arrived in Chiang Mai at 11pm, expecting to be greeted with a bit more jungle and desolation than we had seen previously. Wrong. Chiang Mai was just as much a bustling city as Bangkok or Phuket, but with generally nicer people. We arrived at our hostel, impressed by the reviews online and the outward appearance of it, only to find out they had given our room away mere seconds before. So all the "niceness" of the hostel went out the window when we were put in a little dingy closet that smelled of fresh paint and formaldehyde and had no hot water. Luckily we were able to switch rooms the next day, and because they felt bad about giving us the shaft, we got 2 nights free! Yep, $1.25 per person per night is what our 4 night stay averaged out to!
We planned to take it easy our first day there, one because we wanted to plan out our activities for the following days, and two because we knew the rugby world cup final would take up the majority of our afternoon. So off we went to find a local pub to watch the game. We settled at a Texas saloon, in Thailand, to watch New Zealand beat France in an excellent game...what a culture pot! We happened to meet a fellow American from Oregon who shared the table with us and a couple of Frenchies, oh the rivalries! We made friends with the American, who had been living there for 1 month already learning Thai massage, so after the game he offered to show us around a bit! We headed to the Sunday night market to stroll the streets, look at all the jewelry, clothes, and art for sale, and then ventured back to the temple grounds to indulge in some delicious food! Noodles, spring rolls, vegetables, chicken, and mango sticky rice to top it off, all for about $3! A quick tuk tuk ride home and we were in bed quite early to prepare for our busy day ahead!
Finally the day we had anticipated since arriving in Thailand was here!! We arranged a tour to take us trekking in the jungle and it was better than we could have imagined! A van picked us and 2 other couples up at our hostel and drove us about an hour and a half out into the jungle. First stop: elephant riding! We hopped on board some behemoth elephants for an hour long ride through the jungle, stopping along the way to feed them treats of bananas and sugar cane. We each got to take turns sitting on the head and directing the elephant and man is it had to stay on those things! Our next stop was a short drive away, where we were dropped off at an ancient hilltribe village to observe them hand making traditional garments and scarves. The Meo hilltribe is originally from Burma, but migrated to Thailand years ago to escape government persecution. From there the trekking began, as we set off hiking through rice fields, jungles, and ancient temples to reach an incredible rushing waterfall to take a much needed dip. Unfortunately because of the heavy rains this year, the fall and river current were much too strong and our guide advised against swimming. So after a quick break we were off again to hike along the river, fields, and mountains to reach the Hmong hilltribe. The Hmong people migrated from China, and being able to see and compare their houses and lifestyles to that of the Meo was fascinating, as they are so incredibly different! Finally it was time to meet up with the van again and head to a local tribe woman's restaurant for a delicious lunch of chicken curry, vegetables, rice, and papaya. We spent a while relaxing there and talking to our fellow tour members, a Dutch couple and an Asian-American couple. Then we were off on our last adventure, bamboo rafting! We hopped on board a couple giant rafts constructed of about 10 long bamboo sticks tied together to make a flat raft. Our guides stood on the front, using a bamboo stick to steer us down the rushing river, into and away from insane rapids. Unfortunately they gained a little too much enjoyment out of splashing me, so I was completely soaked, but the upside is that they liked me (trusted me, not sure why) enough to steer the boat! Needless to say I failed, sent us down a crazy rapid, and nearly plummeted into the water, but I'm still alive to tell about it! The whole day was jam packed with fun and adventure, just what we had imagined and hoped for for our time in Chiang Mai! As if the day wasn't already great, that night our hostel hosted an all you can eat BBQ (for $2 per person) for all hostel guests. They have an incredible garden with many lounge areas, so we all sat outside drinking Thai beer and eating Thai BBQ and having an amazing time! When it was dark enough, the hostel staff brought out about 8 giant luck lanterns for us to light off! The lantern festival is an annual festival in Asia that takes place every April and originated in Chiang Mai! So going along with custom, we were invited to light these lanterns, make our wishes, and send them off into space! Such a great experience and something we really wanted to try! It was awesome to see these giant flames ascend into the sky, but even better thinking how much jail time we could probably get for doing that in North America...so dangerous!!!
Our Tuesday started off on a pretty bad foot, as we were trying and consecutively failing to book our flight into Bali. Luckily our hostel was extremely helpful, and the owner, an older Thai woman lovingly called "Mama", offered to be our driver for the day for a flat rate of 400 baht ($13)! First stop was the airport to try and book our flight at the help desk: fail again. Next stop was tiger kingdom: amazing. For 520 baht ($17) Jaimie and I gained access INSIDE the cage of 3 young and playful tigers! We got to spend a while playing with, petting, laying on, and taking pictures with 3 young tigers! It was so amazing to see how cute and playful they were up close, although we were warned that they often play rough, leaving bite marks and blood stains-eeek! Our last stop was meant to be a traditional Thai massage, but as we were short on cash and Jaimie was high on nerves, we opted out and instead stopped to buy some snacks for our journey into Laos, beginning the next day. We arrived back at the hostel, finally managed to book our flight, met some new people, had some dinner, and were off to bed!
Wednesday came and we were up packing our bags, eating breakfast, and heading out the door by noon for our 6 hour journey via private van to a small town in the jungle on the border of Thailand and Laos. We bought a package tour that included our transportation to the border, dinner, hotel, breakfast and lunch the following day, and our 2 day slow boat ticket that would take us to Luong Prabang. Let the journey begin!
We planned to take it easy our first day there, one because we wanted to plan out our activities for the following days, and two because we knew the rugby world cup final would take up the majority of our afternoon. So off we went to find a local pub to watch the game. We settled at a Texas saloon, in Thailand, to watch New Zealand beat France in an excellent game...what a culture pot! We happened to meet a fellow American from Oregon who shared the table with us and a couple of Frenchies, oh the rivalries! We made friends with the American, who had been living there for 1 month already learning Thai massage, so after the game he offered to show us around a bit! We headed to the Sunday night market to stroll the streets, look at all the jewelry, clothes, and art for sale, and then ventured back to the temple grounds to indulge in some delicious food! Noodles, spring rolls, vegetables, chicken, and mango sticky rice to top it off, all for about $3! A quick tuk tuk ride home and we were in bed quite early to prepare for our busy day ahead!
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| one of the thousands of temples in the city |
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| Dinner? |
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| foot massage in the street |
Finally the day we had anticipated since arriving in Thailand was here!! We arranged a tour to take us trekking in the jungle and it was better than we could have imagined! A van picked us and 2 other couples up at our hostel and drove us about an hour and a half out into the jungle. First stop: elephant riding! We hopped on board some behemoth elephants for an hour long ride through the jungle, stopping along the way to feed them treats of bananas and sugar cane. We each got to take turns sitting on the head and directing the elephant and man is it had to stay on those things! Our next stop was a short drive away, where we were dropped off at an ancient hilltribe village to observe them hand making traditional garments and scarves. The Meo hilltribe is originally from Burma, but migrated to Thailand years ago to escape government persecution. From there the trekking began, as we set off hiking through rice fields, jungles, and ancient temples to reach an incredible rushing waterfall to take a much needed dip. Unfortunately because of the heavy rains this year, the fall and river current were much too strong and our guide advised against swimming. So after a quick break we were off again to hike along the river, fields, and mountains to reach the Hmong hilltribe. The Hmong people migrated from China, and being able to see and compare their houses and lifestyles to that of the Meo was fascinating, as they are so incredibly different! Finally it was time to meet up with the van again and head to a local tribe woman's restaurant for a delicious lunch of chicken curry, vegetables, rice, and papaya. We spent a while relaxing there and talking to our fellow tour members, a Dutch couple and an Asian-American couple. Then we were off on our last adventure, bamboo rafting! We hopped on board a couple giant rafts constructed of about 10 long bamboo sticks tied together to make a flat raft. Our guides stood on the front, using a bamboo stick to steer us down the rushing river, into and away from insane rapids. Unfortunately they gained a little too much enjoyment out of splashing me, so I was completely soaked, but the upside is that they liked me (trusted me, not sure why) enough to steer the boat! Needless to say I failed, sent us down a crazy rapid, and nearly plummeted into the water, but I'm still alive to tell about it! The whole day was jam packed with fun and adventure, just what we had imagined and hoped for for our time in Chiang Mai! As if the day wasn't already great, that night our hostel hosted an all you can eat BBQ (for $2 per person) for all hostel guests. They have an incredible garden with many lounge areas, so we all sat outside drinking Thai beer and eating Thai BBQ and having an amazing time! When it was dark enough, the hostel staff brought out about 8 giant luck lanterns for us to light off! The lantern festival is an annual festival in Asia that takes place every April and originated in Chiang Mai! So going along with custom, we were invited to light these lanterns, make our wishes, and send them off into space! Such a great experience and something we really wanted to try! It was awesome to see these giant flames ascend into the sky, but even better thinking how much jail time we could probably get for doing that in North America...so dangerous!!!
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| Visiting the Meo Hilltribe |
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| at the waterfall |
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| releasing the luck lanterns! |
Our Tuesday started off on a pretty bad foot, as we were trying and consecutively failing to book our flight into Bali. Luckily our hostel was extremely helpful, and the owner, an older Thai woman lovingly called "Mama", offered to be our driver for the day for a flat rate of 400 baht ($13)! First stop was the airport to try and book our flight at the help desk: fail again. Next stop was tiger kingdom: amazing. For 520 baht ($17) Jaimie and I gained access INSIDE the cage of 3 young and playful tigers! We got to spend a while playing with, petting, laying on, and taking pictures with 3 young tigers! It was so amazing to see how cute and playful they were up close, although we were warned that they often play rough, leaving bite marks and blood stains-eeek! Our last stop was meant to be a traditional Thai massage, but as we were short on cash and Jaimie was high on nerves, we opted out and instead stopped to buy some snacks for our journey into Laos, beginning the next day. We arrived back at the hostel, finally managed to book our flight, met some new people, had some dinner, and were off to bed!
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| Playing with tigers! |
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| They were so cute and cuddly! |
Wednesday came and we were up packing our bags, eating breakfast, and heading out the door by noon for our 6 hour journey via private van to a small town in the jungle on the border of Thailand and Laos. We bought a package tour that included our transportation to the border, dinner, hotel, breakfast and lunch the following day, and our 2 day slow boat ticket that would take us to Luong Prabang. Let the journey begin!
Careful of those rice fields now...there be Charlie in them trees.
ReplyDeleteThat kitty cat didn't look too peaceful with your head resting on him/her. Please stay away from the monkeys.
ReplyDelete