Ｔｒｅｋｋｉｎｇ ｉｎ Ｃｈｉａｎｇｍａｉ, Ｎｏｒｔｈ Ｔｈａｉｌａｎｄ

Sunday 1-25-10 8ish PM.
My mouth is on fire from gas station spicy fish and rice, the bus is stopped on the side of the highway. One of the gauges reads zero. After 20 minutes or so, the driver decides to press on. The lights go out, I take a sleeping pill and wake up in Chiangmai at 6AM. A van takes us to a guesthouse where I shower and talk to some people before a truck picks us up at 9Am to begin the trek.






We stop at the tourist police station to check in (so they bring all of us back) and drive some more. The 2nd unadvertised stop is at an orchid farm. I think they brought us all here hoping to get commission from the way overpriced ceramic flowers. Next we stopped at a snake farm. We saw some Thai people play with snakes and scare everybody.




















Next we stopped at an indian tribe called the longnecks, you had to pay $3 to go in and look at people with rings on their necks, so along with most of our group, I waited outside and explored instead.











Finally we parked the truck, had some fried rice and delicious fruit for lunch then began our hike.











ELEPHANTS!











After about 3 hours, we made it to this small village.










This was our shelter- almost 100% bamboo.









In Thailand, all the packs of cigarettes have one of 20 or so pictures on them to scare people from smoking. Pretty cool. (And no, they're not mine!)










The french people had brought some snacks with them from town. Not sure exactly what the one on the left was, not much flavor, but the coccoony thing on the right was pretty bad.





Our guide looney made us a real dinner, fried chicken and curry, then we hit the hay. The village roosters woke us up early and we had some pancakes and more delicious fruit for breakfast.





Me ready to go. The hike was supposed to be 6 hours today.





A hut mid construction.





Most of the hike was through the jungle. I was very thankful the weather here was a little cooler than Bangkok's.





I found a great vine on a hill and got to play Tarzan- it held up!





This village is full of refugees from the Chinese revolution. The Chinese that people that didn't flee to Taiwan fled to Laos and Burma but weren't allowed to stay, so they went South into Northern Thailand where they were allowed to stay, but only in the hills.





WATER!











After 5.5 hours, we made it to this cool waterfall and went for a swim.
















Me getting a very high pressure shower.





And trying to balance on a rock.





We had lunch at the waterfall's neighboring village, some ramen and egg but no fruit this time!





This is a Papaya tree. Thai people love papaya. Street vendors sell it plain, as salads, in foods, etc.





We hiked another couple hours and made it to the second waterfall. The waterfalls were more fun, but the water was super shallow here.





It started to rain, so one of the French guys and I were the only ones that went in.






We hiked a couple more hours along the river and made it to a camp. Domien and Steven from Belgium came with me for a swim in the river before dinner.





Looney made us some mixed vegetables and a pumpkin curry that was out of this world. I'm going to try and make it when I get some kitchen time. After some relaxing, we went to bed.





Wednesday 1-27-10

This is the shelter we slept in. Really just 3 walls and a roof. It was great to feel a little breeze and hear the river as I drifted off to sleep.





We had pancakes again then took off back up the road. There was a river rafting place nearby so we kept seeing these people precariously perched 4 rafts high driving by.





We made it to an elephant camp here. Apparently elephants work 3 hours, sleep 3 hours and are let free in the forest to eat for the remaining 18.











We all got on elephants and went for a hike. We went through some rough terrain. The Elephants handled it amazingly. Through one part, these big beasts balance across a concrete section about 6" wide and 10 feet long and not a single one mis-stepped.





The elephants stopped every few seconds to beg for more bananas.










Me and my buddy.





We hiked to the rafting place after and got ready for some white watering. It had rained overnight, so there would be a nice current. This is our guide, Looney.





The river was brown today due to the rain, but still super fun.





When the river smoothed out, we parked the raft and got a bamboo raft. From left to right: Me, Dror from Israel, Domien and Steven from Belgium. Domien is studying Chinese as well in North East China.





We all met at a spot down river for lunch. We shared info, said goodbyes and took a truck back into town.





I got back to the guesthouse, took a shower and sat with some Americans that are teaching English in Mid West China... They don't really like it and hadn't really learned any Chinese. We had a nice chat though and sat together on the bus back to Bangkok...


That's all for now, this is still only 5 days into the trip. Another update soon to come.

Bangkok, Thailand

1-24-10 6:30ish PM

I'm writing this as my bus trudges through the busy streets of Bangkok. I'll start with Friday the 22nd.

On Friday I woke up in Samuel Woo's apartment with my head spinning from only 4 hours of sleep in the past 2 days- saying goodbye to my friends while simultaneously moving and trying to figure out my Beijing plans had taken most of my time lately. Three hours later I finally arrived at the Macau airport and was waiting for my flight. There I encountered a really nice Thai family. Nong, Nang, Neng, Nyut and their cousing Byut.





They had been traveling in Macau and were now on their way back home to Bangkok. We played some cards, shared traveling stories and pictures and they gave me lots of advice about Thailand so I could make a better plan of what to go do once I arrived. We shared a cab from the Bangkok to Nong's house.





Nong walked me to the bus stop and we stopped for dinner. This looked bad but it was a super tasty noodles in gravy dish.





At the bus stop I realized all my maps were with Nyut's stuff, so we walked back to their place and eneded up going out for dinner again.





The 2nd dinner was really good as well. Eggs, fried stuff, a vegetable with a dirty name, noodles and the works.









After dinner I headed back to the bus stop and slept the whole 1 hour ride to Khao San road, which I heard has a lot of lodgings for backpackers.





Here's a guy relaxing on the street.





This is the outskirt of Khao San road. I found some guesthouses, but it was already 11:00 PM and they were all full here.





The main part of Khao San road- thousands of people from all over the world gathered here- there were many interesting characters.





ID anyone? After walking around a couple hours I finally found a guesthouse that wasn't full for about $6 per night. I took a much needed shower and crashed hard, despite the music that blared all night.





Saturday 1-23-10
I wake up and wander Khao San road looking for a printer to print my China VISA forms on. I settle for B&W. It was weird to see this place in the morning- nearly quiet and empty compared with the blaring party from last night. I got in a Tuk-Tuk and headed to a Thailand Association of Tourism (TAT) to get my VISA.





TAT couldn't do student VISAs, so I walked about 1.5 hrs to the Hua Lamphong train station and saw some neat things like this market along the way.





The traffic signals here all countdown, pretty convenient, though I could see problems arising from people jumping the gun.





I got to the subway and met some Americans that were all teaching English in Korea. We took a subway, I got off near the Chinese consulate and had some BBQ beef. The consulate was closed, but I met a Japanese girl that had studied Chinese for 5 years and lived in BKK. It was funny that it was easiest to talk to her in Chinese. We walked back to the subway and she told me some places to check out in Thailand.








I took the subway to the Chatuchak weekend market and met back up with the Americans from earlier. The market is huge- 10,000 plus shops and still nothing worth buying. There were lots of colorful foreigners here and a few Thais.





This is a little pet stand.





Stuffed french toast?





There are lots of tiny bikes in Thailand. This is about the fastest at 150 CCs. Probably gets great mileage.





I got a call from Nong, so we relaxed in the park for a while before Nong and his friend Bang came to pick me up.

















The english teachers.





A palace on our way to dinner.





Another palace?





Bang, Nong and I.





The Democratic monument.





We went to a restaurant on the river. Across the river is a 2-300 year old monument.





We had Nong's favorite food here, flaming curry prawns.










Thai food is always super spicy, they have a saying 'no spice no flavor.' It's all served with Basil to soothe the burn.





This is the vegetable with a dirty name.





A seafood medley.





And finally some delicious paste made from squid, shrimps, fish and peppers.





The boat here is a dinner cruise for about $150 per person.









We left and drove around to a few more palaces. This symbol means cool in Thailand.





I can't remember the names of any of these places, but I think this is where congress meets.










Bang dropped me off at Khao San road. I was supposed to meet with the Americans from earlier, but I didn't see they had messaged me until the next morning. Here's a cool little taxi.





This is 'Pad Thai' it's pretty much all there is to eat on Khao San road- tens of carts all serving the same thing in very small portions.





Sunday 1-24-09
I woke up and walked around looking for a sign I saw earlier for a bus to Chiangmai for about $11. All the other agents were about $17. I found it and was relieved to see an English guy behind the desk. We talked a bit and I decided to take a 3 day 2 night trek through the mountains in Chiangmai. I had some time to kill before the bus came at 6PM, so I headed out to see some sights.





Big Buddha





Some monks. I saw one with an iphone.





Sleeping Buddha





Sitting Buddha





Fried ice cream outside the temple. Much better that I expected... it only piqued my appetite though.





I got some wierd cracker tacos.





And these looked good but had a really salty bitter filling that ruined them.





A fried peanut butter cookie- like eating peanut cement. 3 strikes in a row.





Finally some decent food.






I had my lunch, read a bit and at 6PM hopped on the overnight bus to Chiangmai...




That's all for this batch. I have pages and pages left in my journal and hope to get them all up soon with some more pictures. I'm in Beijing now staying with Scott Powers and Justin Alters from UCI. I'm glad to be here and excited to discover Beijing, but it's so COLD and dry! Today was 23F. More to come soon!