Chiang Mai

Trip Start Feb 01, 2007
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Trip End Aug 18, 2007


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Sunday, July 29, 2007

On the 23rd July we caught a sleeper train to Chaing Mai. We were pleasantly surprised with or beds for the night, probably because we had to lower bunks opposite eachother (top bunk are small, no window & apparently you roll around more). The train was suppose to take 14 & a half hours but it was delayed by 4 hours so took 18 & a half! When we arrived in Chaing Mai the driver from the hotel we booked saved us from the usual bunch of taxi/tuc tuc drivers. We stayed at Eagle House 2. The room wasn't that good as it was ground floor, with some sort of dumping site for the hotel outside our door, we stayed in this room for 2 nights then managed to get a upstairs room which was a little nicer. Apart from the room the hotel was ok & ran really good tours. On our first day we did a Thai Cookery course run by the hotel called 'Chilli Club'. The course took up most of the day first we went to a local market to buy all our ingredients & our chef also showed us a few other things like local fruits etc. We cooked & ate 5 different meals each, so we were pretty full by the end of the day. We even got a recipe book & certificate to take home! In the evening we go out for drinks with the people we met on the cooking course. We also meet up with Robin! Dan saw Robin when we were in the minibus from the train station, so eventually we managed to meet up, which was cool! The following day its an early start after a late night, a bit hungover! We have booked a day trip through our hotel. Bamboo rafting man
Bamboo rafting man
 First we drive about an hour north of Chiang Mai to an Elephant camp called 'Mai Ping'. Before the trip I wasn't sure about elephant riding, as I wasn't sure they were well treated. However after a bit of reading I found out that in the past elephants were used in the logging industry in Thailand, however this was banned in the 1980's. This meant many elephants were left out of work & abandoned. Now there are many elephant camps in Thailand which take on abandoned or sick elephants, these elephants are used to take tourists on  treks etc, so in a way tourists are keeping them. Obviously I think it would be best for them all to be freed. but there is a lot of conflict because elephants eat so much farmland etc. Anyway my conclusion was that by going on a trek I might actually be helping the elephants in some way. back to the day trip we went on a very enjoyable elephant ride through the jungle. Then we went on a very relaxing bamboo raft down the river. Here we boarded an ox cart which took us to a beautiful resort in the middle of the jungle for a buffet lunch, which was mostly vegi! After lunch we went to an Orchid & Butterfly farm on the way back to Chiang Mai. The trip was very well organised, much better than our trip to the River Kwai. On our last day in Chiang Mai most of our time was spent orgainising trains to the south. In the evening we went to the night bazaar, which had hundreds of stalls, much better than Bangkok, so bought a few souvenirs here.
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