Standby For Action: Chiang Mai

Monday, 27 October 2008

Elephants and stuff

From 8-20-2008 - Trek - Elephants

We set off for our 5 hour hike. It seems long but we were fuelled by the promise of an elephant trek. The elephants were much bigger than i remember asian elephants being and seemed even bigger when you are staring at the ground from a top of them!

From 8-20-2008 - Trek - Elephants

Although the elephants were fantastic, i have to say the trek was a little uncomfortable and i spent most of it holding on for dare life as my elephant stepped down into a river. At least we weren't on the elephant behind us who decided that he would much rather plough into bushes of Bamboo for a bite to eat rather than stay on the road :D.

From 8-20-2008 - Trek - Elephants

We said goodbye to the elephants and got to our second village. This village had vehicle access and as a result was far more developed.

From 8-20-2008 - Trek - Elephants

We played soccer with the local kids at the school and i gave out packs of toys i bought in the Chiang Mai market. We swam in the river alongside water Buffalo who seemed rather indignant that we had stolen their prime swimming spot. The evening was spent playing games and watching magic tricks performed by our man of many talents tour guide. The next morning we set off on some bamboo rafts for a 3 hour boat ride down the river. It was a little wobbly at first but once our tour guide jumped over to our boat and pulled me into the river i realised it was one waste deep water and quite safe. The rest of the trip was spent having a war with the other boats, including some spanish tourists who's male members would happily through their girlfriends in to save themselves. :D We arrived at our end point and caught a truck back to Chiang Mai.

From 8-20-2008 - Trek - Elephants

Bonus pic, Cool cricket!!

From 8-20-2008 - Trek - Elephants

And more!

Trekking across Chiang Mai

We drove in a back of a ute for about an hour and got to our first pit-stop, a little market with various tidbits for sale including snake, bits of chicken i've never seen before and fried crickets. I did sample the latter, once you pull off the wings and legs i found them to have the taste of honey soy chicken. A bag of them was bought and shared among the brave tour mates. Apparently i'm the only one willing to try random foods (and also the only one to be able to handle spicy food.. the english are real chickens!)

From 8-19-2008 - Trek

Our trip continued with a trip to a waterfall for a swim. I had forgotten how hard a waterfall can hit you. I couldn't stay under some areas for long, but then maybe i'm just a wuss :P Oh man, click on the next image, it's awesome but blogger messes up my formatting

From 8-19-2008 - Trek

Actually it was a bit of a sad story with the waterfall. We had been swimming for a while and then someone noticed that there was a half decaying dead dog in the corner. So yeah, that was a bit of a dampener on things and also made the girls freak out. Tony, our guide and the coolest guy EVER, took the dog out and gave it a more dignified place in the forest. He's really cool like that.

So with the dog gone and us not really feeling like swimming in dead dog water we headed up the road for a bite to eat and the real start of our trek.

From 8-19-2008 - Trek

The trek was pretty easy going, i thought. It wasn't too much different from what i had to do at work. The surroundings were lovely, and a lot like New Zealand forest. But then, i always say that. We did manage to find this little yellow snake. Which was quite venomous apparently.

From 8-19-2008 - Trek

So what do you do with a little venomous snake? Poke it with a stick and piss it off, apparently (if you're a local guide :P).

From 8-19-2008 - Trek

Poor little guy.

So other things we learned on the trip: how to throw a knife, that little lizards are cute and when you see a termite mound you should put a nice leaf on it and you'll get a nice girlfriend/boyfriend.