Monday saw us start early (up at 6.45am) and drive north for about an hour through windy mountain roads in a minivan with 4 others - 2 Japanese girls who were highly excitable and a english guy and his mother. Our guide was nice, friendly and spoke very good english.
We were turfed out at a layby and, with our guide, we started walking uphill through what looked like a forest.... it was quite warm even at 9am but we soldiered on. I ( Michelle) took off like a bullet full of energy in the morning but was stopped in my tracks about 15 minutes into the trek when I came across what can only be described as a Indiana Jones style shakey bridge across a gorge !! I looked back to see the other gaining on me so I decided - bad and all as it was crossing the shakey bridge alone - it would have been a lot worse with people behind me on the bridge. The bridge was made of bamboo and didn't feel very stable crossing it - I had got about half way ( needed to go slowly as had to watch my footing) when I felt the bridge shaking .... the others had started to cross....kept the head up so as not to look down and made it across in one piece .. Phew !!
I (Sancha) loved shaking Michelle on the shakey bridge ;o) so apparently I have no problem with heights from above (see elephant piece later) but have a problem with heights to above, if you know what I mean. No? Let's just say I won't even be a Lisa Madden and conquer Aconcagua or Denali ;o)
We continued climbing ( and in Sancha's case, wheezing) for another 45 minutes, finally reached our destination - a tribal village high up in the mountains. We took a rest for 20 minutes, walked around the village, took photos and drank litres of water before making our way back down along the same route. Sancha felt victorious after the monumental climb and felt the need to reward herself with a handmade turquoise material bag. Totally useful aswell of course, most non-native girls in these parts have one right?
Our next stop was an elephant farm where we could have partaken in elephant rides ... most did including Sanch - I declined the kind invitation (big, smelly, not the friendliest looking animals) and instead sat under the shade and watched Sancha throw her leg over the side of the elephant's back, settle in and then saunter off into the woods. Indeed, I (Sancha) did! The trepidation and apprehension! It felt weird to be pitched on top of this beautiful but very high animal! They were very gentle, so once I got used to feeling like I was going to fall off every time he took a step, I actually got into it and managed to take note of the scenery etc. Three adult elephants with 5 people and one baby elephant headed off into the bush. Our "drivers" were people from the Karen tribe, originally moved from Myanmar about 200 years ago. They spent all the time shouting instructions to the elephants, shouting to each other, shouting at the people trying to flog bananas to us to feed the elephants and saying nothing at all to us. The one time I saw any form of expression on my driver was when a cute girl on a moped drove by.... They did manage to have a break however and rolled themselves some rather large smokes, if you catch my drift...
After the elephants, we stopped for a traditional thai lunch. We then headed to another tribal village of the Karen people where the local women hand weaved all the clothes. The day trip also included a stop at a waterfall ( not that spectacular to be honest...... nothing on Torc) and then onto the bamboo rafting which turned out to be the best fun.
There was 3 people per raft with a local guy steering with a long pole. I ended up with the two japanese girls who couldnt stop giggling and laughing . There was several other daytrippers at the launch site so there must have been about 20 rafts in a line heading down the river. The river wasnt that deep at all - just above waistline in most parts. It started off as a gentle, civilised float down a green waterway. Pretty butterflies adorned the air. Then it got kinda messy:
Down river, the local kids along the river back decided to soak everyone as they passed so a waterfight ensued with rafts against the kids. Then a group of 4 Aussie guys who were also rafting decided to liven things up by firstly trying to jump from raft to raft usually capsizing the unfortunates they landed on and then attempting a coup by throwing overboard the local guys and taking charge of the rafts themselves and then ramming each other. When faced with puzzled expressions, they simply said "we're from Australia", which to be fair was a perfectly viable explanation! By the time we got to the end of the line, everyone was drenched through - had a few Singha beers at the riverbank and attempted to dry off before all piling into the minivans for the drive back to Chiang Mai ( over an hrs drive).
We had a big feed of pizza washed down with local beer that evening.
Pic: View to Chiang Mai from Doi SuthepDublin - Hong Kong - Thailand - Laos - Vietnam - Cambodia - Malaysia - Singapore - Australia - New Zealand - Chile - Bolivia - Peru - Argentina - Brazil - Dublin
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