Time flies…

Well it seems that we have a bit of catching up to do!

So Matt and I collapsed on the beds at the hotel when we arrived in Chang Mai, recovering from the hotel California and the sleeper train trip with the horrible, abnoxious, drunk English men!

We didn’t have much time to rest because the next day we jumped on a mini bus and weaved through the streets of Chang Mai picking up guests for our day trip. Our gorgeous (not looking) tour guide was Kon, who was jovial and seemed to know a bit about the places we visited. Our first stop was a hilltribe the Mao people, from Lao I think. It was a forty minute walk up hill. Matt got to the point where he dug in his heals and said “I am not going any further” and we happened to be 10 meters away from the tourist sign welcoming us to the village. From what we could tell, nobody actually lived there it was purely set up for the tourists! So why not 10 meters from the road 🙂 It was an old village that they had preserved, which made us feel a little more comfortable rather than it being a “Human Zoo” experience. We both had turns at shooting a cross bow. Matt shot a bulls eye, through target on the mellon that was hanging.

We then set off to go elephant riding. It is hard not to fall in love with the elephants. I was a big skeptic, but when you have two little cubs following beside you and then go walking and playing in the river your heart melts! There is something about the way that there trunks grab the bananas and manovour it into there mouths that gets you!

After our traditional Thai lunch we went bambo rafting, which isn’t quite as exciting as it sounds. Though it seems to take more skill that you would think from observing. Matt ended up in the drink after having a go, it was the rapids that caught him out. We all got wet, which is always fun.

We visited the Karen tribe (one of the versions as you will read later), and purchased some weaving – a piece that took three days to weave. When we paid the lady 140Baht ($5), she looked at us as though we were gullible for paying so much. We did pay alot because at the market the next day we saw similar pieces for 65Baht ($2.20), but as Matt said “I’m not going to pay someone 3 dollars for 3 days work!”.

Somehow I persuaded Matt to walk down to the waterfall that we visited. You couldn’t see the waterfall for all the tourists swimming in the water! I think that Matt was pleased with the view (*Matt elbows Phil*). That night we went out to the night markets – the markets are soooooo much fun here in Chang Mai and had Burger King for dinner – too much culture for one day 😛

The next day Matt couldn’t get out of bed for our 7am start to visit the Golden Triangle and more hill tribes. From his lips I could make out “No more walking” in a faint wisper. God love him he was exhausted and the Burger King was playing havock with his tummy – figures. I spent the day on the mini bus, over 7 hours of driving (lucky Matt didn’t come). The golden triangle is nicely set up for tourists, I caught a speed boat over to an enclave in Lao that you do not have to go though imigration in order to go shopping. It was a bit of a joke. The speed boat also took us to see the Paradise Casino set up at the norther tip of Myanmar.

A lot of tourist take this day trip in order to get their passports extended. I met some young Aussies that had run out of money and time, waiting for money to clear from their parents at home.

The rest of the day was filled with visiting hilltribes. We visited another two versions of the Karen tribe, affectionately known as the long necks and the big ears. This felt a bit more like a human zoo, but the village have a cover charge for visitors and plenty of sovineer shops. There where another two tribes living by there side, one which only washed twice a month because they believe that the spirits recognised them by their sent. The hilltribes are all refugees from countries such as Tibet, Myanmar, China and Lao, some have been here for only a couple of years, others have been here for hundreds of years.

Since then….hmmm…we have been relaxing, marketing, enjoying Chang Mai. We love it up here and could easily stay another week however we are catching a train tomorrow and heading south to Koh Samui, two overnight sleepers. Please pray for no drunk English men 😛

Thank you for all your emails and comments. I am trying to get through them and answer them individually, because we really appreciate the news from home. It is good to hear that the water catchments are filling up – I just feel sad for all the little kids that have just started back at school. That is enough ranting from me.