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.