Chiang Mai, Thailand
Everyone in our group woke up very early (about 4:00 to the sound of a rooster (or cockerel as the English would say) crowing. Still, almost everyone stayed in bed until roughly 8:00, when breakfast was ready.
After eating some toast and fruit, we quickly packed up our stuff and prepared for the day. Just after 9:00 we began a long hike. The scenery was remarkably similar to that of Oregon. Jackie, Spizz, and I all remarked how similar it was to hikes in Coos Bay and Eugene. Later, when we found a large tarantula, we decided it was “same, same but different” (Thai saying).
At around 11:00 we reached an incredibly beautiful waterfall. I quickly left the group and found a place to change my cloths. Though we could not go swimming, we all took turns walking behind the waterfall and taking a quick shower. I then decided to climb up as high as I could. I made it to the second tier (about 20 feet high) before deciding that I should head back down (at Jackie’s urging).
Once everyone was finished playing in the water we started our hike out of the waterfall. An hour later we reached the road and jumped into our song taos. After a short drive we reached a small restaurant and had some lunch (fried noodles and fried rice).
When everyone was finished eating we took another short drive to the rivers edge. From there we jumped onto bamboo rafts and set out down the river. Jackie, Spizz, and I shared a raft with a woman from the Czech Republic and talked a lot of trash to the Brits (creating a USA vs. UK race). As we raced down the river we splashed each other tried to sink the other team. I spent most of the journey (about 1 hour) steering the back of our raft while our captain controlled the front.
At one point the Czech lady in our group had a massive spider/tarantula on her back. Jackie and all of the other girls around freaked out. After lots of hysterics our raft captain grabbed it off her back and threw it at the British girls on the nearby raft. The entire experience was awesome! It was even better because we ended up winning beating the British in the raft race.
We left the river at a small outpost on the waters edge. We were surprised when a woman came up to us and showed us a picture of us on the raft. Even though it made the experience feel more like Disneyland, we reached purchased the photo. We even got the Brits a copy of us and signed it so that they would always remember that we beat them in the rafting race.
At about 14:30 we left the rivers edge and headed for a nearby elephant camp. We split into groups of two and began our elephant ride. Jackie and I ended up getting the most stubborn elephant of all time. He seemed like he did not want to go anywhere. Our guide was forced to leave the elephant’s head and coax him along from the ground. Jackie and I were quite disappointed with our guide because he was not very nice to the elephant and spent more time reading the back of a hand sanitizer bottle than he did guiding the elephant. At one point our elephant wandered so close to the edge of the cliff that Jackie and I though we were going to tumble over the edge. We had to hang on to our seats to keep from falling off. The entire experience was much more exciting (and uncomfortable) than my previous elephant riding experience (in Ko Chang).
When our ride came to an end we spent a while feeding our elephant some bananas. As we hung out with the large animals I decided that I am not sure how I feel about the elephant camps. Our guide was not very nice to our elephant and several of the other elephants did not seem very happy either. Two girls from Holland were forced to jump off their elephant at the end of the journey because it was leaning on the edge of a mountain.
1t 15:40 we got back in our song taos and began the journey back to Chiang Mai. We spent most of the hour-long journey talking with our new English friends and exchanging contact information. When we returned to the city we got dropped off at Tiger Travel and then walked back to Lisa’s school.
After a few minutes of wandering around the school we found Lisa and all went to her room. We tossed down our bags and took cleansing showers. Jackie and I ate with Lisa and her friend while Spizz took a power nap. When we returned to the room we discovered that Spizz had left to meet up with our trekking group for dinner (Jackie and I were unable to attend because we had to catch a bus back to Bangkok).
At 19:30 Jackie and I left Lisa’s school and headed for the bus station. For some reason we could not find a song tao and were forced to hire a tuk-tuk. We reached the bus station at 8:15 and jumped onto our bus.
Once again we had VIP seats and were quite comfortable. It was the best bus ride yet. Our seats were at the front of the vehicle and we were so exhausted from trekking that we quickly fell asleep.
3 comments:
It does look like Oregon, except for the spiders, elephants, and warm weather!
OK, let me get this straight. You are steering a raft in Thailand. There is a M-F'ing TARANTULA on random lady's back. Your guide GRABS a TARANTULA, and proceeds to THROW a TARANTULA at unsuspecting Brit rafters.
Your life is officially cooler than mine!
Oh, I forgot something. Your crappy elephant ride reminded me of a time in my illustrious past.
When I was a young chap I stayed for a week or so on a dude ranch in Montana. No, not a ranch filled with dudes, but actually filled with horses.
I was assigned a horse for the week to work with and to ride when I pleased. This horses name was Able. This was because he was "able" to move quickly, but he wouldn't. It was very frustrating trying to keep up with the other horse riders who had horses who weren't named Able. They probably had names like Rocket, Lightning, and Stupendous.
Anyway, one day when Able really was not in the mood to keep up with anyone else in our crew, our guide came back to me and Able and smacked Able on the ass with tremendous force. Able took off like a sprinter out the blocks and now the problem was I couldn't stop him. We raced through an open field of flowers as I hung on for dear life. Finally I was stopped when the guide caught up to us and grabbed Able by the reigns and calmed him down.
Moral of the story, I don't think animals like to be rode all that much. Your encounter with a stubborn elephant just reminded me of my country adventures.
Post a Comment