Elephants. White Water, Bamboos and Footie!!
Trip Start
Jun 11, 2008
1
105
349
Trip End
May 14, 2009
Chiang Mai,
Thailand
Saturday, September 13, 2008
After breakfast our elephants turned up to take us for a ride. It was two to an elephant, so Lorna and I got one to ourselves - without the trainer being on it. Our elephant was called Kapong, which seemed relevant once you had smelt it's pooh!
Our elephant ride took us through the jungle for about an hour. You actually sit on small seats on the elephants back, but half way through I asked if I could actually sit on the elephants shoulders and the trainer said it was OK. This was an absolutely awesome experience riding an elephant bareback. Although it gets you a bit numb around the ass, it is an experience I will never forget - the elephant riding riding that is, not the numb bum!
Washing the elephants
! I suppose Bangkok or Phuket are the best places for numb bums!!The elephants then dropped us off, not literally of course, at the river so we could do our white water rafting. This was another fantastic experience. There was four of us in the raft, plus the guide, and we all got absolutely drenched! We got thrown all over the place in our raft but I am pleased to say no-one fell out! We hit loads of rocks as well which bounced us from one side of the river to the other - it was grand.
Finally for the morning, we got on a bamboo raft. The raft itself was already submerged in water before the four of us got on, so it didn't bode well for a dry trip. Mind you, we were already drenched from the rafting I suppose. As we sat on the raft we were actually sat in the water!! I did manage to stand up for most of the way, which was a little difficult to do at first. It's quite hard to keep your balance on a sinking bamboo raft!! It was all good fun though!
We couldn't take our camera on the rafts because it would have drowned, but the guides did take a couple for us which we bought at the end - very cheaply, surprisingly. We will need to get them scanned before I can post them on this blog though - maybe we can get it done in Bangkok.
After the rafting we had a Pad Thai lunch by the river before heading back to Chiang Mai
1-Washing the elephants
. We checked into the Summit Hotel because it was really cheap and we got a tv in the room. I think it used to be an old hospital though by looking at the rooms! Might be useful if we get drunk tonight!As we had only had Thai food for the past three days, we decided we would go back to the Chiang Mai Saloon tonight for a meat treat (I'm not talking about ladyboy's either!!). By an amazing coincidence, honestly, they were showing the Liverpool - Man Utd game live (we are 6 hours ahead here so it kicked off at 6.45pm our time). Lorna didn't mind too much as she made use of the free internet. After the match (which was a good game actually), we had our fix of mixed grill and chicken & chips - all washed down with ample amounts of Chang Beer.
As it was a Saturday night, we ventured down some back streets and found a couple of live music bars. These were really good and the bands were pretty decent as well. The first one was called Heaven Beach and was designed as a beach bar, even with the sand on the floor! We then went to the Babylon bar to see another band who were pretty good as well. The beers at both these bars were quite cheap and they were both pretty busy all night.
We didn't get back to the hotel until the early hours I'm ashamed to say......we will have a lie in tomorrow!
