Sunday, February 04, 2007
Lots to cover...
Phew, what an exhausting last few days! I've done quite a bit since I last posted so this might be a biggie.
First off I went on a day trip out of Bangkok last Sunday to Kanchanaburi to see the bridge over the River Kwai, take a trip on the Death Railway and to see some tigers up close and personal. The tigers were the absolute highlight. They are raised from birth by a group of monks, so they are billed as being "tame"... so you can get taken around about half a dozen tigers and stroke them, and if they're docile enough at the time, you can get really close to them. We got there about an hour before feeding time, and they definitely knew what time it was! So we had to approach from behind them each time.
Then on Monday evening, I took the overnight train from Bangkok up to Chiang Mai in the north of the country. This was a really long trip, and I didn't really sleep much on the train, but I met some people and the time passed quicker than I'd thought it would.
We arrived late into Chiang Mai, at about 9.30am and I was whisked away to the guesthouse to re-pack my gear to start a 3 day trek around the hill tribes of the area. I then met the people who would be on my trek. They were Carly and Becky, plus Chris who they'd met on the plane on the way over, Fantin and Guiseppe (a Thai/Italian couple) and a family from Denmark who were only doing a 2 day trek.
On the first day we drove a way out of Chiang Mai to a waterfall for lunch and then to the drop off point. We then walked for a couple of hours to the village where we were staying for the evening. I hadn't really read up very much on what to expect, so I thought the villages were going to be very primitive... no electricity and not much in the way of running water. Well they had electricity... and some people had televisions... but running water was a little harder to come by. We took a tour of the village, then our guide cooked us a yummy dinner and we sat around the fire for the evening being taught tricks by a couple of the villagers.
The next day we broke camp at around 9.30 and walked ... and walked... and walked... to be fair the walking was broken up by visiting some really pretty waterfalls. By the end of the day I had blisters on my feet so was extremely glad to see the village we were to stay at. This village was much more... civilised... than the first one. We all upgraded to our own little hut with an ensuite for the night, and I treated myself to a massage since it was my birthday. Again we had a lovely dinner (our guide was a great cook) and sat round the fire with a few beers to chill out before bed.
The next day we hiked out to another waterfall where a couple of mad people were jumping in from what looked like insane heights. Fromthere it was an hour's walk into town for lunch, and then a quick drive to go bamboo rafting. This isn't like white water rafting... it's literally a few bamboo poles tied together with a sort of seat across the middle, then a dude at the front punts it along, and someone stands at the back and helps out. I sat on the middle with Fantin while Guiseppe helped punt, and Carly Becky and Chris were on the front one. We were never gonna stay dry on that raft! I shouted ahead to Carly and Becky to see if they were soaked yet and they said they weren't... so our guide took that as a sign that they weren't getting into it enough... so he jumped onto their raft and tried to sink it! From that point on it was war between Chris and our dude...
Next up was elephant riding. Well. I got onto an elephant with Chris and the first thing it did was swing it's trunk over it's head asking for food. If we didn't give it bananas it would breathe all over us... yuk! I think we picked the hungriest, most contrary elephant there! At one point we had gone halfway up a slope and it decided it was mega hungry so started going over the side of the slope which was really steep. I thought we were gonna fall over it's head!
They took some good pictures of us on the rafts and elephants which I'll send home once I get back to Bangkok.
First off I went on a day trip out of Bangkok last Sunday to Kanchanaburi to see the bridge over the River Kwai, take a trip on the Death Railway and to see some tigers up close and personal. The tigers were the absolute highlight. They are raised from birth by a group of monks, so they are billed as being "tame"... so you can get taken around about half a dozen tigers and stroke them, and if they're docile enough at the time, you can get really close to them. We got there about an hour before feeding time, and they definitely knew what time it was! So we had to approach from behind them each time.Then on Monday evening, I took the overnight train from Bangkok up to Chiang Mai in the north of the country. This was a really long trip, and I didn't really sleep much on the train, but I met some people and the time passed quicker than I'd thought it would.
We arrived late into Chiang Mai, at about 9.30am and I was whisked away to the guesthouse to re-pack my gear to start a 3 day trek around the hill tribes of the area. I then met the people who would be on my trek. They were Carly and Becky, plus Chris who they'd met on the plane on the way over, Fantin and Guiseppe (a Thai/Italian couple) and a family from Denmark who were only doing a 2 day trek.
On the first day we drove a way out of Chiang Mai to a waterfall for lunch and then to the drop off point. We then walked for a couple of hours to the village where we were staying for the evening. I hadn't really read up very much on what to expect, so I thought the villages were going to be very primitive... no electricity and not much in the way of running water. Well they had electricity... and some people had televisions... but running water was a little harder to come by. We took a tour of the village, then our guide cooked us a yummy dinner and we sat around the fire for the evening being taught tricks by a couple of the villagers.
The next day we broke camp at around 9.30 and walked ... and walked... and walked... to be fair the walking was broken up by visiting some really pretty waterfalls. By the end of the day I had blisters on my feet so was extremely glad to see the village we were to stay at. This village was much more... civilised... than the first one. We all upgraded to our own little hut with an ensuite for the night, and I treated myself to a massage since it was my birthday. Again we had a lovely dinner (our guide was a great cook) and sat round the fire with a few beers to chill out before bed.
The next day we hiked out to another waterfall where a couple of mad people were jumping in from what looked like insane heights. Fromthere it was an hour's walk into town for lunch, and then a quick drive to go bamboo rafting. This isn't like white water rafting... it's literally a few bamboo poles tied together with a sort of seat across the middle, then a dude at the front punts it along, and someone stands at the back and helps out. I sat on the middle with Fantin while Guiseppe helped punt, and Carly Becky and Chris were on the front one. We were never gonna stay dry on that raft! I shouted ahead to Carly and Becky to see if they were soaked yet and they said they weren't... so our guide took that as a sign that they weren't getting into it enough... so he jumped onto their raft and tried to sink it! From that point on it was war between Chris and our dude...
Next up was elephant riding. Well. I got onto an elephant with Chris and the first thing it did was swing it's trunk over it's head asking for food. If we didn't give it bananas it would breathe all over us... yuk! I think we picked the hungriest, most contrary elephant there! At one point we had gone halfway up a slope and it decided it was mega hungry so started going over the side of the slope which was really steep. I thought we were gonna fall over it's head!
They took some good pictures of us on the rafts and elephants which I'll send home once I get back to Bangkok.
# posted by Sue Lambert @ 2:52 AM 
