Ok so since I last blogged I've had my first experience of 'Thai belly'... aka was stuck in the room for a day with food poisoning. It wasn't as bad as it could've been (the only major annoyance was having to reschedule our trek) so after a day of relaxing (and heaps of tlc from the people at our guesthouse) I was ready for some more adventures.
That evening we went to the infamous Chiang Mai night markets which we very touristy, I did buy a patch however which kept me happy but nothing else was too appealing.
The next morning we were up early for a tour we did with two other people staying at our guesthouse who are just lovely. We started the trip by going to a butterfly and orchid farm - some butterflies were bigger than my head and quite scary! It was quite hard to take photos of them but some were stunning. After that we went to an elephant camp where we rode elephants on seats. It was amazing, we were up there for ages roaming through jungle and the guide was really nice and taught us heaps... After about 20 minutes the guide jumped off the elephant and we all had a turn of riding the elephant by sitting behind its ears. It was so scary going down hill! When we got back to the camp we fed the elephants bananas and my elephant sneakily stole the bunch I bought for him!
After the elephant camp we headed to the jungle and did an hour trek to a waterfall - halfway there it started to POUR with rain so we were absolutely soaked but we embraced it as we were all so hot from walking in the heat. Halfway to the waterfall we stopped at a 'hotel' in the rainforest... aka a shack and just before I sat down a centipide that was the size of my forearm just casually scuttled past me and all the Thai people went crazy and killed it with machetes... guess I was pretty lucky - they said it was really dangerous because it was so enormous!
The waterfall was spectacular and by the time we got back to the car we were buggered but the journey wasnt over yet. We drove to a nearby river and did a 4km whitewater rafting trip which was so much fun, I thought I was going to die at some points - it was so exhilerating. After the whitewater rafting we floated for another kilometer on a bamboo raft which was so relaxing ducking in and out of mountains.
By the time we got back to the guesthouse we were all so exhausted and hungry that we couldn't be bothered with language barriers and hunting down food. So we went to a diner around the corner and got a burger. It was just what we needed.
Today we did a full day Thai-cooking course. We learnt (and ate) so much. We made Pad Thai, spring rolls, Chiang Mai noodles, red curry paste, Hot and Sour prawn soup and banana fritters. Amazing.
Tonight is our last night in Chiang Mai and tomorrow evening we have another enormous journey ahead of us... a 15 hour bus trip to Laos (hopefully sans chickens). Not sure if the mobile will work but i'll let you all know!
