Northern Thailand

On first arrival into Thailand I immediately headed north to Chiang Mai, a busy stop off point for many visitors making their way around South East Asia. It was good to arrive somewhere with no plan, and after getting off the bus at 5.30am, I wandered around a dark sleepy area that should be the hub of where I needed to be, in search of a guest house for the night. Really quickly I found many, but all were closed until a more socialable hour. Until that time came, I walked about some more and accidently disturbed a dog or two that inturn barked to wake all the other dogs in the area. Oops, sorry!

Straight away I can see the difference to how things are here compared to where I've been. I've come from a path less travelled and outside of peak times, into a well troden backpackers route at the hight of season. In Yangshou I'd started to get a feel for being somewhere more travel friendly but even there it was a quiet time for tourists. If I bumped into a westoner I probably already knew them, but now, more than every other person I pass on the street is just visiting. At the moment I like being in this place and just 'belonging' for a while, it's nice to feel familier to stuff after so long away (there's even a small Boots here just like at home). I hope however, that not every place I visit from now on has become focused and transformed by the strong backpacker trade, it'll be nice to see places as near to as they should be.

Chiang Mai is a lovely place to be though. I'm still getting used to the weather. The sun is always out and jumpers are a thing of the past (but I do keep one with me at times just to feel close to home). I'd caught the sun enough in South China to move up the tan scale to off-white, but here i'm making much faster progress and think I'm at beige already! The attitude is real laid back to and things move at a slower pace. Even at markets I'm not harrassed to buy something just because I walked past the stall. But what Chiang Mai is more commonly used for is being a base, either for people hiring bikes to explore more, or for going on treks further north in Thailand. I stopped here just long enough to go on a three day trek and do some washing upon my return.

The trek was was really good, don't think I've been in woodland as tropical as this before. The first day of walking was difficult, just a couple of hours but all of it was up. We were aiming to get to the Lahu hilltribe village before nightfall which is located 1000m above sea level apparently. Normally you may expect to be treated to a local cultural performance during the evening of arrival, but instead our guide performed classics such as Hotel California on his guitar complete with misheard/misunderstood English lyrics. Actually he was really good and the surroundings there were perfect. We shared a bamboo hut on stilts and hoped that we wouldn't fall through the floor as it constantly felt that we might.

The second day was far harder in the morning but after a swim in a waterfall and an interesting walk through bamboo filled jungle type terrain, things got a lot easier. I really like bamboo too, I've a lot of time for it. I heard in 24 hours it grows 1 meter, which I didn't get a chance to watch yet, but when I've a spare day I plan to varify this fact if I can. We crashed out in another stilted hut down by the river this time, and waited for the elephants to come home in the morning and do the walking for us for a while.

The elephants were really cool. I was nervous of this as I've heard tails of the animals being treated really badly for the sake of the tourists, but they did seem really happy. They wandered freely at night and in the morning came back to camp for a bath before we set off. Mine was called Banu, but I think Bananaphant is more appropriate. He loved bananas, every few steps he'd put his trunk back to me to feed him one, and then again for another before moving again, and he never even gave me a chance to peel one for him. When we passed the elephant convienience store (a banana shop on stilts) Banaphant insisted I buy him more. Dertermined to save him a couple as a treat at the end, he'd get the hump and let out a huge huff if I ever refused him his favourite food.

All that was followed by some white water rafting and then bamboo rafting before returning back to Chiang Mai. It was a nice really good and refreshing way to end a hard and hot couple of days, but on getting back I've got so much washing to do and a stupid amount of various bites to attend to. If I was a mosquito and saw someone had gone to the effort of coating themselves in Deet and sleeping under a net, I'd take the hint that they didn't want to be biten and leave them be. Shame the mosquitos and junhgle bugs here couldn't think in the same way.