Came back to Bangkok for another few days. can't remember exactly how long I spent in bangkok, but I did have a good time! I like Bangkok. At first it was too chaotic and the tuk tuk drivers wore me down a little, but once I got used to them it was good.
Met up with the lovely Belgian girls and My dear friend Alex and also met some more cool people. I met a few girls, one of whom had a father who owned a superb condo near Sukhumvit. It was mental. We went for a swim on the sixth floor in a pool with a diving board at about 4 in the morning. The view of the Bangkok skycscrapers was magical, with all the red lights at the top of the skyscrapers flickering.
Went to Chang Mai, which is pretty good. The food there was immense. Had a local speciality dish which was almost as good as my mums chicken curry and served with crispy noodles. I highly recommend the market and food hall.
Visited a few temples and had a chat with a monk there too, which was enlightening. I love monks. Most of them are very cool and obviously spriritual people. Some of the novice monks can be a bit cheeky, but then again many of them are just teenageers.
Met some very cool people on the 3 day trek I signed up to: Andy, Jamie, Steve, Kate, Brian, Gary, Dave, Lenny and Anka. The first day encompassed a 1 hour elephant ride and then a 3 hour trek up to our base for the night in a hill tribe village. It was so slippy towards the end that for every step forward i took about 3 steps back and if it wasn't for Jamie pushing me up the hill I'd have probably given up, sat on my arse and slid back down the mountain.
The villagers are originally from Tibet and Burma and are known as the Shan. Very,very nice people and very nice food. Half way through the night we were visited by Doctor O, the local opium dealer. Some of the group partook in this vice and it was hilarious seeing them being unable to do very much afterwards. One person couldn't even go the toilet and our guide, stumpy, had to help him.
The next day we did a 5 hour trek stopping in a Chinese village for lunch. This day was excellent as we didn't see any other trekers and the scenery and dense jungle surrounding the trails was immense. We stayed at another hill tribe village (people originally from China), which had a nice waterfall next to it. Again, more superb food cooked by Stumpy.
The final day involved a 2 hour trek and a stop at another impressive waterfall before going white water rafting. Can't wait to do it in New Zealand as it was such a buzz. Then we did some bamboo rafting. I had to do the piunting and somehow managed to fall in, much to the others amusement. I could see the funny side of it too.
Returned to Lanna guesthouse for a final mad night in Chang Mai before leaving for Pai.
Stayed at the Sugarcane huts about 1km outside of Pai town (really a village). The owner Jeb and his uncle made us feel really welcome and even sang songs for us. We all highly recomend the Sugarcane huts!!! Nice, new and clean huts for 150 baht a night (just over 2 quid).
We hired mopeds and bumped into the Belgian girls again in the scooter hire shop, which was a pleaseant surprise. Then we went to Pai Canyon, which offers superb vistas and is semi-impressive. Quite scary climbing over the narrow ridges though.
In the evening we went to a hippy party, which was good for a couple of hours, but then became a bit too alternative for my liking so went to another bar which was much better.
The next day we went to the hotsprings, via a fun detour. We took a wrong turning and ended up going throgh farm tracks. Looking back this was fun, but at times the track became a quagmire and as I was trying to push my moped through, my flip flops would come off and stay lodged in the mud. Needless to say, it was very messy. Finally found a hot spring. There are 2 in Pai, one of which is in a really natural setting and the other has been turned into a hot swimming pool. Unfortunately, we went to the later as it was a fifth of the price, our bus was going to depart for the Laos border shortly and it was half the distance. We got some funny looks when we turned up covered in mud.
