Being the culture capital of Northern Thailand, Chiang Mai has a great amount to offer; nights out, good food, mountain pursuits and among other things an enormous walking market. We spent more time here than anywhere so far on our journey to the North, staying at a guest house called Parami that's owned by a Swiss man and his wife.
While chilling out in the garden, we met another travelling couple and later hit the town. We had started off in a budget Thai restaurant that was delicious and slowly worked our way up the strip bar hopping. We finished in a bar playing some locals at pool in a nail biting tournament that ended up with the locals winning the final match and the dosh!
Our second day was spent on a cookery course, you each choose six dishes to make. We had an energetic Thai lady as our teacher, she was great fun and made the course a fantastic experience. The first step was to make our curry paste, which is much simpler than we expected. We chose to make red and yellow curry between us, the only real difference was the type of chilli used and fresh turmeric was used to make the yellow curry. Bashing the paste into submission with a mortar and pestle was hugely entertaining, especially as our instructor was shouting exuberantly the word "harder" over and over again! We recommend going on a cooking course if you ever visit Thailand and we hope to bring some of our newly learnt culinary expertise back to the UK (Lots got the highest mark for her vegetable Tom Yum Soup so there are no excuses!).
Our next adventure took us on a two day trek into the local mountain regions to the North of Chiang Mai. We started with an Elephant ride, we weren't to sure what to expect after seeing the way they were treated in central Thailand, but they were well fed, watered and rewarded with a bath in the local river after each ride. For such cumbersome animals, they seem very happy in water. We saw this in the Elephant sanctuary outside Lampang, they use their trunks as water pistols and splash their fellow herd and anyone who foolishly gets too close!
We managed to get on the naughtiest elephant of the lot, starting in second place and finishing in last by some way. Within minutes he had gobbled up all of our bananas and then moved onto the surrounding shrubbery and trees.
After the elephants we went on a two/three hour track to a local hill tribe. We followed a narrow path weaving its way up the mountain, jumping obstacles and dodging over-hanging branches. We stopped off at a secluded pool, although the water levels are low at the moment, there was still enough for us to slide down the naturally made waterfall and into the cool waters of the pool. This was all well and good until the only Frenchman in the group decided to strip naked directly in front of Lottie which gave her a bit of a surprise.... Typical French!
We made it to the mountain village at about 7 pm and were showed to our sleeping quarters. We were sleeping on a bamboo floor, about three meters above the ground with a roof made of leaves. The villagers were friendly and all helped cook for us, there were dogs, pigs, chickens and a litter of newborn puppies running around us all the time which definitely provided us with entertainment. Surprisingly we weren't bitten by any Mosquitos that night too, result! One of the highlights of the camp was a local who was both deaf and dumb; he was keen on showing us his newly learnt magic tricks from previous visitors.
The next day we set off down the same track but were halted by a forest fire; although it was on the adjacent hill, the smoke and ash were spreading across our path so we turned back. It wasn't the end of the world as went down a new track, although it was mostly through smelly cabbage fields, it was nice to see some different scenery.
Our final part of the trek was white water rafting,even though it was incredibly tame, it was still fun. We went down with an Irish girl who was a great crack and our coxswain wasn't that proficient at steering (on more than one occasion we got stuck and had to jump up and down to get ourselves moving again). The highlight was bobbing past an elephant bathing as well as some locals climbing onboard to catch a free ride!
The final night was spent with Sharon, our Irish friend. We visited the night market where Lottie bought her first anklet (with some great bartering!). The night market in Chiang Mai is a must visit and is without a doubt the best one we've been too in Thailand.
That's it from us, next stop Pai where we will be staying in a bamboo hut! Adios Amigos! X
No comments:
Post a Comment