We arrived in Chiang Mai and went to the Saturday Night Market, which consists of a plethora of stalls set up by locals selling food and handicrafts. We tried jellyfish and octopus sushi! And saw the largest cockroach we've ever seen (2.5inches) fly into the hair of an unsuspecting tourist. She screamed as a local picked it up and threw it onto the ground. The next morning was the beginning of our jungle trek. The three of us plus 5 Singaporeans and 2 Koreans piled in the back of a song tao to make our way north of Chiang Mai. The rural landscape was full of greenery, hills, and wooden huts. We trekked our way through the jungle to an elephant farm, where we got to ride elephants! We bought bananas to feed them, and as we were walking towards the platform, a baby elephant came running towards us and grabbed the entire bunch of bananas so fast from the Korean, she didn't know what hit her. It was quite amusing.
We then hiked for 5 hours through the jungle until we reached our destination - a small hut in the Karen village where we spent the night. There were two huts in the area we stayed, one in which the family lived, and the other for us to sleep in. The walls were made of wood, and the roofs with leaves interwoven with sticks. Both buildings were raised about a metre off the ground. The man who hosted us was a cute 4'6 scrawny fellow who made us Massaman curry and a vegetable noodle dish. Because we were so tired and hungry from the trek, everyone described each dish and drink as the best they've ever had. After dinner, we sat by the campfire as our tour guide serenaded us with his guitar. He knew a lot of English songs...from the 60s that none of us had heard of lol. Because we were so far out of the city, we could see the stars shining bright. Apparently the big dipper is known as the crocodile constellation in Thailand. In the Karen village there is no electricity, so we had to use flashlights for everything. We developed a buddy system for urinating...one person did their business while the other stayed on the lookout for people, giant bugs, or stray dogs.
So...back to those mosquito bites that we 'had under control'. Turns out they were sandfly bites (which was why our mosquito repellant didn't work) and scratching them spreads the the sting. They are also 10x itchier than mosquito bites. Thank god for the friends we made, who were equipped with calamine lotion to ease the burn (and were appalled at the appearance of our legs).
The next day we trekked for 2 hours and then went bamboo rafting! The rafts were made out of 5 long sticks of thick bamboo in a row. We started out standing on the raft, but our Thailand version of a gondolerian kept tilting the raft to either side that we were forced to sit down to avoid toppling over. For the majority of the ride, all we could hear was KE laughing and screaming as her gondolerian constantly capsized her raft. On our way back to Chiang Mai, we had the luxury of standing in the back of the truck to enjoy the beautiful scenery that northern Thailand has to offer.
After saying bye to our new friends, we went to the old city to explore the temples and history. The old city is surrounded by a moat and some of the remains of the old wall are still standing. There was a special Buddhist festival going on, and the streets were filled with vendors, and stalls selling incense, flowers, and fake money for the people to make offerings to the gods. The temples were packed with buddhists, and there was a large line to drop coins in clay bowls as part of their offering. There were also monks of all ages sitting in chairs, and people would kneel around them, provide an offering, and in turn receive blessings. This was done by dipping wooden sticks in holy water and shaking them over their heads.
We met up with one of CFs friends from elementary school for dinner, such a small world. We tried Burmese cuisine, popular in northern Thailand as it is so close to the border. We then went to the night bazaar, a market place that sold absolutely everything...even fake Tiffany! We also finally found mango with glutinous rice, a common Thai dessert that we had been looking for for awhile. Delicious!
Love and hugs,
EGF
Ps In Canada we say "oh my god." In Thailand, it's "oh my Buddha." LOL
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