We landed, checked in and headed straight to a Thai cooking class we had booked for that evening. There's just something refreshing about hitting up the local market and not having a clue what 75% of the items are ...... these are the same items you're about to cook a 4 course meal with. After the market we headed back to the guides' house for our lesson in traditional Thai cooking. After plenty of chili, coconut, random items I can't spell, and the occasional pan fire ..... we are now both ready to throw down a dinner party Thai style, that His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyade would be proud of.
We woke early the next morning for our adventure trek into the jungle. This was to include the elephant camp, jungle trekking to a waterfall, visiting the long neck tribe in the mountains, white water rafting, and then finishing up, half dead and exhausted, getting paddled the rest of the way down the river on a bambo raft. What they forgot to mention to us when we booked it, is that there will be 11 of us "riding Mexican" in the back of a pick up truck for 90 minutes to get there. The day started early with breakfast at 7.30, then was the surprise of the pick up truck. At first there were the two of us, then we picked up two more, and two more ..... you get the picture.
After about 90 minutes we arrive at the elephant camp. People started to get on the elephants to head back down the mountain. After seeing the appalling treatment (and use of hooks to control these amazingly friendly creatures), we actually declined the rides and took the truck back down to wait for the others (we looked like tree hugging hippies, but there was just no way we were going to be part of that). Whilst down there we stocked up on raw sugar cane and bananas from the locals, and fed the gang of exhausted and over worked elephants when they rocked up with all the others.
Then it was on to the jungle trek. By now it's 90 degrees and the humidity was getting to sauna levels. We were told it was a 2 mile jungle trek, but again the language barrier proved to be a problem, and that turned out to be 2 miles each way...... and let me tell you it was no walk in the park..... it was most definitely a walk in the jungle.
The rafting was as you would expect. 6 novice tourist that had to be told which end of the paddle goes in the water, beasted by a drill sargent that was our raft captain for an hour. There were easy times, fun times, exhausting times and then times where you actually thought you might not make it out. The main thing is that there were smiles the whole time, and I'm writing this, so we made it out of our sticky situations.
If we though the pick up truck was bad in the morning, after that day it was dam right torture going home. Who cares though ...... this was what we signed up for.
Chiangmai really is an amazing place. You will hate it if your idea of a vacation involves laying by the pool day after day repeating the same drink, eat, sleep pattern ..... but if you want outdoors adventure, experiencing a different culture, and just a dam good time ...... put Chiangmai on you bucket list, you won't regret it. Tomorrow we plan to rest ....... or that was our plan anyway.
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