Last night in Thailand(?)

Trip Start Mar 11, 2008

Trip End Ongoing

Loading Map

Map your own trip!

Map Options

Show trip route

Hide lines

Where I stayed

Chat House

(Chiang Rai hotels)

Flag of Thailand Chiang Rai, Thailand
Friday, May 2, 2008

The bus trip to Chiang Rai was a pleasant surprise: comfortable seats, air-con, on-board toilet and even a lunch stop! Aside from the small child travelling with his mother on the seat next to me, who whined incessantly for several hours of the trip and then squirted milk all down my leg whilst playing with the carton, I would go so far as to say I actually enjoyed it.

At Chiang Rai I checked into a cheap & cheerful guesthouse, negotiated myself a 2 day hilltribe trek departing the next morning as an antidote to my enforced week in Bangkok, and set off for the Hilltribe Museum to find out a bit about the different tribes I would be visiting over the course of the 2 days. Chiang Rai itself doesn't have much to commend it. It's a pretty busy town catering for quite a different tourist scene to Chiang Mai (predominantly middle-aged Americans)- relatively expensive hotels and restaurants, not much by way of temples or sights, and a distinctly unimpressive night bazaar compared to the one in Chiang Mai

Al fresco aerobics, Chiang Rai-style

. It's a good base for trekking and touring however, and the staff at my guesthouse were super friendly and helpful. I also randomly bumped into a French couple on the street who I'd met on my trek in Nepal (but not seen after Thorung Phedi base camp), so was fortunate enough to have some company for dinner for the evening.

The following morning I awoke to rain, which my trekking guide, Sibounrang, took great pleasure in informing me was forecast to continue for the whole day, and probably the whole of the next as well. [This was a prophecy he delighted in repeating many MANY times over the course of the 2 days, finding many proofs in nature to support his theory e.g. 'in Thailand when see many ant together (i.e. following an ANT TRAIL), mean many rain come'...]. Thankfully for me he was only right about day 1 of the trek- a pretty miserable day to all intents and purposes, which involved much wading through streams over neck-breakingly slippery rocks, checking for attached leeches every few steps, and clambering up steep inclines of slippery orange clay, sliding back 1 step for every 2 taken forward... This punctuated every few seconds by warnings of 'be careful Amy, ver slipper'. No shit Sherlock!

At the start of the trek, when Sibounrang informed that we were only walking 6km on the first day (as opposed to the 5 hours sold to me at the trekking office) I'd felt pretty miffed, but as it happened I came to appreciate this:- we were no sooner holed up in our overnight stilt house in a Lahu village enjoying a late lunch (more on this in a minute) than the heavens really opened, heralding the start of an absolutely torrential downpour which lasted for the remainder of the day

Chiang Rai

. I can think of many worse ways to spend a wet afternoon than sat overlooking a stunning valley view watching clouds roll in, enveloping the surronding hills in an ever-changing landscape of billowing white and grey..

Food
No more than five minutes into the walk it started to become obvious the trek was going to be as much a culinary experience as a walk through the jungle. Every 5 mins Sibounrang would utter a delighted exclamation and delve off into the undergrowth returning with some piece of edible foliage, fungi or a flower which he would then menu plan, excitedly describing any number of possible dishes he could cook for our lunch, dinner or lunch the following day. Over the course of the trek the menu plan must've changed at least 20 times! For a self-confessed foodie like myself, this was great news at first, and the dishes he turned out for lunch and dinner on the first day were both delicious and very different from anything I would otherwise have had the opportunity to try:- steamed fresh bamboo (the first of the year's new shoots), banana flower soup, stir-fried forest mushrooms with baby fern fronds, spicy tuna flavoured with fresh mint, lemongrass, chilli & tea sprigs (only the top 2 leaves as favoured by the good folk at PG ;) ) all harvested directly from the forest...

By mid-morning on day 2 however, having been stuffed like a turkey the previous day with more food than it is feasibly possible for one lone trekker to eat, I reached the stage where I no longer even wanted to hear mention of food, let alone discover what 6 culinary delights I was going to be prepped for lunch and afternoon snacks that day!

Traditional Thai dance, Chiang Rai

Maybe I was being un-generous and tetchy after a poor night's sleep on my roll-mat, with the sound of pigs, dogs & chicken shuffling around beneath the hut (having been issued with a whistle by my guide in case a local villager stole into my room during the night and tried to make off with my passport and wallet - they are all illegal residents in Thailand - it was somewhat difficult not to lie there and imagine that the sounds coming from below might be a human intruder..), but the constant over-attentiveness of the guide started to really get to me on day 2 and I found myself becoming intensely irritable. Was it too much to ask to just be able to walk in peace without him leaping to my aid with balm every time I so much as brushed a fly from my arm??!! That said, we were blessed with glorious sunshine at last and the scenery was quite spectacular, with some pretty impressive waterfalls along the way, and only minimal hassle in the tribes to buy souvenirs & local handicrafts. The highlight of the day for me came at the end, with a visit to a local hot spring where I was able to totally relax and enjoy the pool pretty much to myself for a good hour. Bliss to the weary trekker!

Tomorrow I plan to move on from Chiang Rai, either to Chiang Khong or directly across the border to Laos. This may well be my last night in Thailand for the foreseeable therefore..