Have bamboo... Will travel! (Chaing Mai)

It was exciting to see the north of Thailand. Occurring at a bit of a slower, less congested pace than Bangkok, it was a place that we could have spent more time than we did. The mountains and jungle were a breath of (slightly less humid and a little less polluted) fresh air.

The first couple of days we stuck around town. Walked the city a bit. One of the highlights of my trip was carefully planned so we would be here on the correct day. The Sunday night walking market! Delightful! A jam packed street of about one km long, and some side streets as well, the market was packed to (over) capacity with locals and tourists out for a good deal on every type of bamboo product (Like lamps, blows and chopsticks), and other products too of course! I loved every second of looking at the high quality handicrafts, and the low quality ones too. The food was a smelly sensory overload, and I eventually had to leave not because I was tired, but because I was tired of people touching me that was not before we all Between the three of us consumed: taro ice cream, coconut ice cream, sweet noodle ice cream, chocolate waffles, coconut juice, honey lemon juice, sugar cane and lime juice, squid, pad Thai, other noodles, cashew nut tart, mango sticky rice! I am going to let you guess who ate what! We also did some good shopping, chopsticks, carved soap flower, leather wallet, magic muscle cream, pants, silver earrings, silk ties, elephant statue, bracelets. Yikes, we went a little crazy! If you have no chance to do this one, do it!! There was even blind buskers along the way providing musical ambience!

Another day we did the Flight of the Gibbon, aerial and zipline tour of the jungle canopy. Being that it was a bit too much of an adrenaline rush for me. Nate and Krys very much enjoyed their zipping along and performance of acrobatic tricks along the wires. I just held on for dear life, sometimes I even managed to open my eyes. The best part for me, was at one point, actually right before we were about to get on the longest zipline of 800 metres, an actual gibbon swung by on the trees above us!! I admired, and envied its grace. We were excitedly anticipating an adventure in the jungle, we had booked an 3 day overnight trek through the mountains. While it was good, it did not meet expectations based on the itinerary we read. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy it!! But, anyway let me tell you about it. It started with another elephant pony ride. This one was much more enjoyable than the first, as it went a little further through some lovely fields. One of the elephants ahead was walking with her baby, so that was cute to watch. It did annoyingly stop at three "elephant cafes" along the way where you could purchase banana and sugar cane to feed your elephant. They also took a little stroll through some dirty water, and our elephant nicely thought that I did need a muddy shower to get me prepared for three days in the jungle. Fun, and a neat experience, but again left me with an uneasy feeling about supporting this tourist trade. However, unlike a horse, I have no background to evaluate the happiness and care of an elephant.

Our hike on the first day in the jungle was up up and then up some more. It was a very hot and difficult scamper that took the better part of the rest of the day. Very glad, I was, that I accepted the bamboo walking stick at the first. When we did arrive in the Karen hill tribe village in the early evening, I was too tired to even explore (at first). I did finally walk around and found the kindergarten school, some homes and farms, kittens and puppies, chickens and pigs and cows! That night, I had one of the best showers of my life. But, I am sure without the day proceeding it, the cold trickle of water in a tin, concrete and mud outhouse in the company of several large spiders may not have been as enjoyable. Our entertainment for the evening was that our guide brought down his niece and nephew, as this was his home village, and some other kids who sang some cute Thai campfire songs. Then we had to teach them some. I am still disappointed in myself that I could not reach back in my brain to come up with any super easy CSR campfire songs. I need to revisit my CSR friends and do some singing.

The second day of trekking was reportedly easier. I did not find it so. Perhaps because it wasn't up, up and up, it was up, down and up it was supposed to be a gentler day. Granted, there were some flat spots even but I was pretty worn out from the first day. Our second night was a campsite next to a waterfall, a swim in which created a very welcome reprieve from the walking and carrying of the very un-ergonomic backpacks on loan from the trekking company, even despite the tiny leeches in the water.

In both places we stayed in three sided bamboo and leaf huts with blankets and a mostly intact bug net. I love sleeping in the open air so much, I was not even sad in the morning to be woken up by the sun and the cry of the roosters! Granted, when you accounted for the frogs and cicadas making noise all night, sleep wasn't quiet either. It was fun to wake up and drink coffee out of bamboo cups cut for us by our guide the night before.

The hike was fun because of the different types of forest, palm, bamboo, coniferous trees even at the higher elevations, that we went through. There was also dramatic variations in soil from clay to rock to sand. And I "really enjoyed" the bamboo and wood fences we had to climb as our hikes took us through farmers fields of cows and rice. Unfortunately I can't talk too much about the flora, our guide was supposed to be pointing out along the way. His tour mostly resulted in picking a few leaves for us to smell. The fauna, on the other hand was no where to be spotted. Oh well.

The people we were trekking with helped make it fun. We actually cycled through several groups of travellers, as we were signed up to do the longest walk. The most entertaining was a group of three young guys from Holland. Childhood friends, they have grown up extremely different from each other and their interactions were constantly hilarious. One owns a Turkish restaurant, one is in school for HR, and the other "sits at home and plays games", but it did come out that he had seasonal work assembling and disassembling carnival rides. The other entertainment came from a guy from England travelling with his Thai girlfriend. They met in England, and like anywhere, you never travel around your home so they were out to see her country. She was not of a hiking persuasion, but held it together pretty well. The young man, I instantly took a liking to, as he immediately started talking about his bug collection. Unfortunately his constant stopping and looking under leaves, and constant banter about bugs wore me down until he was no longer a fun walking partner. In all, he left the jungle with over 60 insects in vials in his backpack.

The last day of hiking was down, down and down. Killer precarious on the knees and ankles, it was in fact the easiest of the days. After we got out of the jungle, we were taken by truck (literally, sitting in the back of a truck) to a touristy stop to try out some "real" bamboo rafting. Our little sled of bamboo floated, mostly, but sometimes it sunk, down a nice little brown river and bumped along some tiny little rapids. At this point it was delightful to know that we were done walking, and the cool float was a welcome reward. The neatest part was looking waaaay up to the branches overhead and seeing grass and derbies caught on them. Amazing to think about how high the river can get. Even though we have been travelling in the rainy season there really hasn't been much rain. I worry for the rice farmers dependent on that absent liquid! Nathan has adopted a song from our bamboo float sung by a Swedish dad to his daughters. The whole song is "bamboo rafting... Bamboo rafting... Ya!" But it must be sung in a Swedish accent. You can add other verses though, at this point I think Nate is up to over 50 verses. "Crocodile hunting..." "Raining on my head..." Sigh. :)

The last day in Chaing Mai we took it easy and tried a second Thai massage, much gentler than the first. Overall, Thailand has been fun, and all of the food options have been enjoyable. It certainly has been inexpensive to travel. There have been neat things to see, and nice people to meet, but it is now a check off the travel agenda. I will not be clamouring to return to this lush green country again. Again, I write you from the overnight train, this time from Chaing Mai to Bangkok, where we will be catching a flight out! We're leaving Thailand and embarking on new adventures in Indonesia! What more would you like? How about a kitten in a tree?