Chiang Mai Part Two

After another night in a bamboo hut, Day 3 started with an easier walk along the river to white-water rafting!!! Can you imagine my face when we arrived and I realised just what I had let myself in for??? I paid a great deal of attention to the safety instructions and was somewhat perturbed when i couldn't fully tighten my helmet under my chin...

Well, I was soon in a dinghy-like raft and I promptly shoved my feet under the cushions in front and behind as directed! Surprisingly, I felt quite secure with only this to keep me into the raft; believe me, i got 'em wedged right in there! The first patch of white water appeared quickly and I braced myself for the worst, yet it was smashing fun and the only injury incurred was that of Adam and his eardrums after my screams of joy had split them!

We were soon paddling along, singing the Indiana Jones theme tune and The Lion Sleeps Tonight (amongst others), zipping downstream through the jungle! It was all over way too soon, and all I could say was "Is that it?" - apparently, the river was "Grade 3" out of a possible 10, so I certainly need to take on at least a 5 next time!

We then hopped out of the dinghy, onto bamboo rafts, which promptly started to sink under the weight of 9 people! it was a little hair-raising, until we realised that the river was only about half a metre deep at this point! Clean showers were awaiting us, just a little further upstream, as was another delicious lunch and time to laze around in hammocks!

It was good to be back at Julie's a few hours later, and we took the time to chill out in the rear gardens and grab some food and drinks. Then it was off to the bars and clubs in Chiang Mai, en masse! We first stopped off at a new bar that had only opened on Friday, owned by Brian from the UK! There, watching Wigan vs Manchester City, were four ex-pats, who joked about looking like Last Of The Summer Wine as we all piled into the bar! "Which one is Compo?" I quickly quipped, which was met with roars of laughter by all and shouts of "Now that's a British sense of humour!"

So, I spent my time chatting to Steve (Leeds), Dave (Southampton), Dave (Scotland) and Brian (?) about our plans to navigate the globe and they were all rather impressed with our proposed itinerary! They recommended a club we should try, but said that we'd best lave it until after 2 a.m. as it would be dead until then!!!

Anyway, we made it to "Spicy" in the end, which was indeed rather quiet, and I was really ready for bed by this time, but my little ears did indeed prick up when I heard the first chords of "For An Angel" - everyone seemed rather amused by my enthusiastic screams of "Paul Van Dyk! It's Paul Van Dyk" and my new Dutch friends were rather impressed that I knew of this legendary Netherlander! After that though, the high point (for me at least) had passed and we ended the night in a rammed Thai bar, where an ensemble of at least 8 Thais were playing live reggae music... bizarre.

Monday was a day of rest and I managed to send one parcel home and realise that to send mail from Thailand is nowhere near as cheap as it was in Korea, so I still have to organise a big parcel tomorrow morning... Not fun. In the afternoon, we hired a minivan to take 6 of us up to Wat Doi Suthep, the largest and holiest temple in Chiang Mai, where we were afforded fantastic views of the city. Goodness only knows when I will find the time to upload my photos, my super-dooper Powershot takes them in such high resolution, it takes an age to get just a handful online using Thai "high-speed" Internet!

Today, Tuesday, was fantastic! Katie, Fiona and I went to the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School, for a day's course! The girls headed off to a local market to look at the produce, while I stayed back for vegetable carving. I am now going to work on cruise ships making roses and lotus flowers from tomatoes and fern leaves from carrots! Fiona didn't believe that I had produced such amazing results without a template!

Thai Red Curry with Roast Duck

We leaned how to make six delicious meals - pork ball soup, spring rolls, red curry with duck, chicken and ginger stir-fry, chicken in pandanus leaves and sticky rice with mango. It was all superb fun and every dish I made turned out just right, so i can't wait to try them all out again at home (assuming I will remember how to do it in a year's time!) We have a cookbook each that includes all the recipes, so I am sure it will all come flooding back!

Anyway, we had a lovely swim in a local hotel's pool, and a good ol' chinwag before coming into yet another Internet cafe to upload photos, blog, email, Facebook, Flickr... I really don't know how the human race got by without the Internet!

So, I must repack again tonight, get up early to locate a damn geocache in which to deposit the damn travel bug I brought with me (couldn't find it last night in the dark), go to the P.O. to rid myself of a kilo or two, check out of Julie's and then wait for the bus to take us up to the Thai-Laos border. We will then stop for a night, before crossing over on Thursday and embarking upon the notorious 2-day slowboat to Luang Prabang.

Do Laotians have Internet access? We will soon find out, watch this space!

Chiang Mai Part One

What a weekend! We arrived in Chiang Mai on Thursday, a little after 9.30 a.m. The night train was great fun (just like caravanning on rails) and I actually had my best night's sleep so far. The Rough Guide was 100% accurate when it warned about the crazy tuk-tuk drivers and touts at the train station - it was like the paparazzi had descended on us! Anyway, we managed to negotiate a minivan to take us to Julie's Guesthouse (as long as we agreed to view another one first!)

Julie's is great, we arrived and there were vacancies for us (that's me, Katie, Fiona and Brendan from Australia who we met on the train.) Sitting in the chilled-out lounge area waiting for our rooms, we also met Rianne from the Netherlands, who I ended up sharing a twin room with.

It was soon time to organise our activities, and we were quickly booked onto a 3-day trek for the next day. That evening, the gang headed off to a Muay Thai match - I decided to stay "home" and repack - some stuff went in the bin and some is still waiting to be posted home soon! Still... too... heavy...

Friday was trek day, and off we set in the morning, after Fiona had to be whisked off by moped to a photo printers, to retake her Vietnam visa passport snaps - Vietnam immigration won't grant a visa to an applicant wearing a boob tube in the picture!!! And then there were 12: me, Katie, Fiona, Rianne, Daniel (Italy), Manuel & Sandro (Germany), Tuomas (Finland), Adam (U.S.A.), Narani and another couple whose names I didn't catch (Netherlands).

First stop was a market to stock up on food for the weekend, where I discovered that my bag (on the floor of the van) was now soaked in fish "juice" - not sure exactly what it was, pooling about under the seat, but I still stink of Grimsby docks!

Then we had about 40 minutes riding elephants through the jungle, after which the baby one decided it would pick up my leg with its trunk and head-butt me into the mud! Then it began - the "2 hour" (read 3 hour) trek up to the mountain tops to camp. I nearly died! It was incredibly steep and I really found it hard on the old thighs. Just as I felt things couldn't get any worse, the heavens opened and I experienced my first monsoon rain, so now I had gravity and slippery mud to contend with!

Just before the "attack"

Eventually we arrived, completely soaked to the skin and all our clothes were promptly hung out over the camp fire to dry. After a good meal, campfire songs and mind-bending riddle stories, it was time for our first night in a bamboo hut.
Luckily, day 2 was much more leisurely (relatively speaking) although without the kind assistance of Daniel and Tuomas, it would have taken me a good few hours longer than everyone else to make my way down the hill to swim in the waterfalls. By mid-afternoon, we were at our next camp, this time not at the top of the mountain, but by a roaring stream...

Ayutthaya

Well, I am sat in a very comfortable internet cafe (with powerful AC) after an incredibly long, tiring, but exciting day!

We arrived in Ayutthaya at 11.30 this morning. It took a while to get about and work out where we needed to be, but we eventually found a place to hire bicycles! That was at 1.30 and we were on them until 4.45!!! We've been zipping around looking at all the Angkor-style temples here (impressive, but on a much smaller scale!)

It was very manic zipping in and out of traffic (sorry Mum!), across dual carriageways and in front of tuk-tuks and mopeds, but even though the drivers appear to be crazier here than at home, they are very good and actually stop for you as you need to get across. Good thing really...

Lunch was greatly required around 2pm, and we were away from the obvious touristy places by this point. We swung into a little roadside place, hoping for a Coke or two. Well, the lovely Thai ladies there were fascinated with us, and out came two of the largest glass Coke bottles I have ever seen!

We decided we were also desperate for food, but didn't fancy the barbecued chicken up at the front, so we though rice was a nice easy option. We asked for plain rice, but they didn't seem to understand (so far, English has been widespread). Katie went off to ask again for it, and all me and Fiona could hear was "No, not cow... rice!!!" Time to get out the Rough Guide and read the food dictionary at the back.

Turns out that rice is "khao" - not cow - so we were on the right lines all along. Fiona opted for some plain sticky rice, but Katie and I attempted to order fried rice, "khao phat" (cow pat!!!) It took a while to communicate this, but eventually, out came two large plates of delicious fried rice and veg, accompanied with a salad of shredded radish (maybe) dressed with lime juice and chilli. AMAZING!!!

We had no idea how much this would all cost as no menus were involved, so imagine our surprise when 2 huge Cokes, 2 plates of fried rice and 1 portion of plain rice totalled only 150 baht (2.40 GBP!)

It was then back onto the bikes to finish off the temple tour. At the main one in the town (I forget the name!) we encountered a huge group of schoolkids, all in bright yellow polo shirts, who were as fascinated with us, as we were with the temples!!! It was time for a photo op, and we introduced ourselves - I think we made their day!

School Outing!

Anyway, I am filthy, I have bike chain oil on my trousers, I had the largest wet patch all over the seat of my pants (no, I didn't have an accident!) and I really stink, but I don't care, it was the greatest day so far. So, next is the train to Chiang Mai in an hour and a half's time. This one is overnight, 13 hours long, so I will be sleeping in the stink until we find a suitable hostel/guesthouse tomorrow. Oh well, this is all what it is about and I am loving it so far.

I've been really pleased with myself also, I'm always off asking for directions, advice and I have perfected "hello" and "thank you" in Thai. I forgot to mention that on Monday morning (when I was in the internet cafe at 7.30am!) that I introduced myself to a lovely Korean girl called Claire, and we had a good old natter about Korea and life over there. I love being back in Asia and last night I found a Korean restaurant in Bangkok, which the girls kindly accompanied me to. I had kimchi jjigae (kimchi stew) and it was authentic, we even sat on the floor at a low Korean table! My mother would have been do proud, fantastic...

Emma and the Emerald Buddha

Well, what a weekend!

We arrived safely and without hitch on Sunday afternoon. The hotel is exactly like it was shown on the website, in fact the girls are rather pleased with my choice! Our room is fab, we have a balcony overlooking the Chao Phraya river, and the water taxi stops right behind the hotel restaurant!

Yesterday, we had a wander around the Khao San Road area, which is a mere 5 minute walk away. I had stir-fried vegetables and rice, and it was absolutely delicious - that and a bottle of Coke for only GBP 1.28! (I must re-learn how to write the pound sign again, without a pound sign key!!)

Unfortunately, I didn't get a lot of sleep last night due to my ever-active brain whizzing over the ridiculous size and weight of my backpack!!! I am so going to jettison most of it back home as soon as I locate a post office!!! I got up at 6am today (not good for the jetlag, but what the hell) and went off to find my first international geocache!

Five Metre Smile

We took a dip in the rooftop pool before breakfast, then headed over to Wat Pho, the temple that houses the huge, golden, reclining Buddha and it was stunning! So far, there has been glorious sunshine and no rain!!. Then we fell into the textbook trap of getting taken on a tuk-tuk tour of the city...

I know this one like the back of my hand and I was very adamant to ignore the first guy to assure us that "today is Buddhist holiday, temple closed, you no go, you take tuk-tuk to free Buddha, tallest in Bangkok!" - I've read all about this, telling you that things are closed so they can drive you to gem shops/clothes shops/tourist info centres.

But around lunchtime when an official at the Grand Palace told us it was closed until 2pm as the locals were praying, we were quickly and inexplicably loaded into 2 tuk-tuks and set off for "5 different other Buddhas" - here's the summary in short:

1 Buddha
1 T.I. shop
1 jewellery store ("you help me, you help me get gasoline coupon!!")
1 T.I. shop
1 tailors

We finally reached the Grand Palace at 3pm. Good job really as it shut at half past, and what do you know, it is open every day from 9am!!! They saw us coming at 100 paces I think! When we re-read the Rough Guide later on, it said "beware of people posing as officials outside palaces" - well, we won't fall for that old chestnut a second time!

Anyway, the Grand Palace was fantastic, it was a perfect photo op, with a glorious blue sky with billowing white clouds behind the golden spires - I'll get some photos on here as soon as I work out how to do it! We saw the revered Emerald Buddha, very small in reality, but absolutely beautiful and so awe-inspiring.

It was then time for a water taxi back to the hotel, a quick bite to eat of Thai noodles, which are like nothing I've ever seen before, I thought it was squid at first, but they were very tasty.

I was so excited about my photos, that I tried to back them up onto my iPod. It didn't work and now I can't even get it to play music... I haven't cried yet (which is a miracle in itself) but I just hope I can find an Apple dealer tomorrow with magic powers. Otherwise I am going to be carrying an expensive brick around for the next 12 months!

Anyway, moving on... tomorrow, we are going to book a train ticket to Ayutthaya, where you can hire bikes and cycle around Thailand's original 600 year old capital. From there it wil be an overnight train journey (with AC and beds) up to Chiang Mai for elephant rides, trekking, Thai cookery classes and to apply for yet more visas, this time for Vietnam!

Yes, the plan is to add Laos and Vietnam to our itinerary before heading into Cambodia from Phnom Penh, then back to Bangkok! From there we will head to the Thai islands, hopefully Ko Tao, to learn how to scuba dive. The onto Malaysia and Indonesia to hit Bali by 13th December!

Phew! Watch this space...

For Tomorrow...

Well, I'm nearly there. In the last few weeks I've been to Cornwall, discovered Geocaching, finished packing (after at least five attempts), uploaded most of my music to my iPod...

Tomorrow is departure day, and yes my backpack is way too heavy and bulky but I genuinely can't see what I could leave out, so I've decided that if I can't cope with the weight and size, it is better to bin stuff on the way, than leave it all at home... I may live to regret this...

So, world here I come, watch this space...