Butterfly, Chiang Mai

... under our helmets), saftey stuff, and time to go!
There are two packages - one with 22 platforms to sail between, and one with 33. I figured that after 22 I'd have a pretty good idea of the whole deal, so I went with that. It was a right laugh, and a good mix of flying between trees on a cable and abseiling onto lower platforms (the guys deliberately let you free-fall for most of the journey, so pants became full of sh*t). I have provided video evidence which I am ...

... we were better prepared for the rest of the day and eventually made camp in a little village in the mountains. that night was pretty uneventful, due to exhaustion and detoxing. the following and final day, with both of us fully recovered involved very little walking. we took a bamboo raft down a river which was a bit of fun, encountering a pretty big water snake on the way! and so ended our trek, we returned to chiang mai to lounge around the pool at our hotel for a few days!

... ordered 4 me, a curry noodle soup thing. Yum. Anyway, I had 2 cancel all the things we planned including Flight of the Gibbons & ATV Tour in the jungle. Told Paul i like history & wanted 2 see C/Mai however he thought best, i also invited Marie 2 come along.
I was picked up at 10am 4 my first tour of C/Mai. Had a good day including the Arts & Cultural Centre, Chiang Mai Zoo with aquariun & pandas. A ...

... Waterfalls along the way( i managed to hoof it along the track but Cherie erred on the clever side and watched from afar!!!)..........there are some 14 sets of falls in the area.....one was enough and will maybe rely on a postcard for a pic of some!!

We stopped off for lunch at a restaurant about 15 k's from the summit for Phad Thai and coffee..total cost 75bath.........$3........geessh!!!..... ..Thailand is so expensive.

Chiang Mai, Thailand macro1234

Chang Mai continued



Cooking class- We had met several people along the way that all highly recommended taking a full day cooking course. From talking around to different friends it didn't sound like the classes differed that much so we went with the one recommended by our guest house.



We started in the local market and learned a bunch about the different spices, veggies and rice types. After sampling a few different spice leaves and veggie slices we all ...

... and potatoes. We made up pad thai which was suprisingly easy and lastly dessert. THe kitchen school was very good, great teachers, good euipment, and we received cookbooks. Later that night we met our trekking companions, just about everyone was older which was suprising.

The next day we started our trek to a small mountain village north of Chaing Mai. It took a couple hours just to get to the point to start ...

... were also sitting around our camp. After lunch, we rode elephants. Two of us sat on a seat on each elephant, and it feels like riding a horse but obviously with a much longer gait. Michelle (my roommate) and I named our elephant Obama after several names our elephant rejected, and it seemed to fit because he insisted on being the leader and overtook the elephant in front of us. The ride was really, really cool, even if we thought we might fall ...

... It's quite fun driving on the streets of Chiang Mai, especially on a scooter because you don't really get stuck in traffic as much as the cars. I, of course, zipped in and out and raced down the road whenever I could...I also did a lot of backtracking because I only had the guidebook map and it was my first time around. Some of the stores I was looking for were closed or not open anymore but I did manage to find Wat U Mong, which is located in the foothills just ...

... but I guess it earns them a living. By the end of day two we were down to five people but the second night of the trek was amazing, we spent the evening playing a national game where you kick a bamboo ball over a net in teams, I won every game I played in but not due to me being athletic (believe me) it was just luck but great fun and we ate rice and curry around a camp fire with a guitar like thing ...

... through the first rapids like a crack team of rafting commandos, and thought that we had it sussed!

After the second rapids our instructor shouted out "HIGH FIVE" and raised his oar into the middle of the boat, and we all followed suit with plenty of gusto. This is EASY, we thought...

Our instructor was obviously so confident in our abilities that he decided that ...