So after a long day travelling (yet again) to Chiang Mai by bus, boat, taxi, aeroplane, just about anything possible; we found a substandard guesthouse (yet again) but nonetheless glad that we'd finally arrived. Dinner and a few drinks at John's Place and we were all looking forward to a more chilled day the following morning.
Chiang Mai, meaning New City, seemed quite good for a city in comparison to Bangkok. After some mooching around it became obvious that Chiang Mai is less manic and less confusing. Despite this, crossing the road is nearly impossible here. You basically end up playing a game of chicken with Thai motorists, not a wise choice! However, when you do eventually cross the road there are nice restaurants, bars and a very large night market.
Although the city is very nice, it was tourist attractions that brought us up here. By the end of the day we had booked Thailand's popular Flight of the Gibbon, a trip to Doi Inthanon National Park, a multi activity day (elephants, waterfalls, bamboo rafting), and a Thai Cooking course. Its safe to say that the next few days were going to be far from relaxing.
So to begin, the Flight of the Gibbon, Thailand's "No.1 tourist attraction". This was to involve white water rafting, a homestay, Thai massage and zip wiring through the jungle, all across two days. We arrived at the white water rafting around midday, and after a safety brief we were kitted up and out on the water. Our raft instructor informed us of some commands to follow whilst out on the water, the basics were paddle forward, lean it, get down, and over (move to the other side of the raft). So some way along this grade 5 river, i.e. very dangerous river, our instructors told us to get over to the other side of the raft - I accidently nearly pushed Kate out of the raft, much to her distress. But before she knew it, our raft hit a rock and she was swimming anyway! Although it was a tough river, we made it to the end in style.
Feeling worn out we were then transported to our homestay, we ended up staying with a Thai woman called Pok who was very kind and welcoming. She cooked us some home made food which was brilliant and after dinner we were treated to a Thai massage - just what the doctor ordered. Wrong. It was horrendous! Never has a massage been so painful, she was pulling on my arms and legs so hard I thought she was going to dislocate them. Feeling somewhat beaten and bruised, some rest was definitely called for.
The next day was zip wire day. This involved a mixture of 19 zip wires, a few bridges and a couple of ropes drops through the jungle. The whole experience was incredible and it was easy to see why it was Thailand's number one attraction. And you do actually get to see some real gibbons! However, its not for the faint hearted. After exiting the jungle after a few hours, we had some lunch and then were off to see the local water fall. All in all it was a great couple of days that were well worth the 5900 baht.
Some travel advice:
Don't cross the roads in Chiang Mai.
Visit the night market, its massive and you can get basically anything there.
Book flight of the gibbon for sure! But don't have the Thai massage unless you have a high pain threshold!
Ayden
