THE Best value for money....
Trip Start
Unknown
1
26
48
Trip End
Ongoing
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Our guest house was the best value, 8 euro a night for the two of us with tv fan and swimming pool, the food was tasty and cheap too which added to our happiness and comfort. would definately recommend staying here!!!
the first day we went visiting the city itself, spending time around the different wats and visiting the sunday night market. It really is a wonderful friendly place with beautiful temples and places of interest.
Next day we started our three day trek in the jungle. we were taken into the north western jungle for hiking and accommodation with local tribes. we started our first day with a walk up 156 steps to the first temple. a huge golden budha stands at the top with some oddly decorated sculptures on the way to the top. after lunch we head for the jungle to start our treking. we reached 2540m encountering beautiful plantlife and insects, a few dodgy spiders too!! after about 4 hours of walking we get on the elephants who take us, very slowly i might add, to our hut for the night. we stayed this first night in the mong village. they are a very historic hill tribe that originated in china. a fresh water river runs alongside our bamboo huts so after taking a dip to cool off and get clean we head for the campfire and sit and have some beer while we wait for dinner! there were 8 of us all together on the trip so we really had a good laugh, messing, slightly over the limit, around the campfire! after dinner we got some lovely desert! we were offered deep fried maggots and other insects. OUr tour guide tried to coherse me into eating one, and after a lot of determination to decline, when i saw the others doing it i had to join in! it actually tasted like omlette! very strange!
after a load of beers, we headed to bed, all 8 of us in the one cabin sleeping on heavy quilts and listening to the jungle sounds at night!!
Day 2 we headed for another trek, this one i felt was more difficult as eh i was lil hungover'! the sweat was pouring out of me and our tour guide kept saying "no more happy hour" at me laughing his head off. i'd swear he took us up the steeper side as he knew we were dying!!we reach a high peak, looking out onto the karen village and stop for some lunch. very traditionally, our food was wrapped in banana leaf and served with bamboo chopsticks that our guide carved for us! if only we were well enough to really enjoy it!! damn alcohol!!
we make our way down the other side of the mountain and after walking through many paddy fields we reach a waterfall. we were given the option of swimming but i didn't feel up to it so i sat on my bag eating bread sticks from 7eleven. they were delcious, ah it's the small things that get us through! after this stop we headed for the karen tribe village where we were going to be staying. the karen tribes are very spritual. they work and rely on the land. we helped prepare dinner hear and ate with the family which was an experience. after the day we'd had we opted for an early night as there was more treking to do tomorrow!!
next day we take a walk through the karen village. we stop at the school to a nosey, myself and mark exttremely interested we head in for a look. all the children are looking at us like we're monsters!! i get that alot!! they were just ready to go out to play in their pathetic looking play ground. nevertheless you could tell they were so excited! the classrooms were very basic and they had little matresses in the corner for nap time! i took note of this as i will be adressing this idea when i return with the board of management!!!! they were so cute and so many similarities with irish children, ie they were beating the shit out of eachother over who's turn it was and who was better at sliding down the slide. we walk a little further to be finally picked up by our driver and brought to the river for bamboo rafting!we saw a snake as we rode on this bamboo raft down the river, twas a good laugh and got soaked too! always fun! after some lunch we get back on the truck and head back to chiang mai. it really was a terrific trip and well worth it. even though we suffered day 2!
after another few days , mainly relaxing and swimming in our lovely hostel, we were ready to head back to bangkok to meet up with gav and gerry for two weeks of madness!!!
