Our first stop on our round the world trip, Thailand! We
have been here for around 10 days now and have spent most of that time in
Chiang Mai, northern Thailand. We are travelling in Thailand together with our
friends from Denmark, Jill & Jesper. We decided that between Denmark &
Australia Thailand was a good half way point to have a holiday together!
Our journey began in Bangkok when we all met up at the
airport at 6am. We decided to venture into the city on the brand new sky train
which was really easy and is currently barely even used. Most people are still
crazy enough to try and take a taxi into town which is definitely something to
avoid at all costs because it can take literally hours because of traffic jams.
The sky train cost us just 90 Baht per person (just under $3, score).
We had just an overnight stay in hot and humid Bangkok, the
purpose of which was to simply decide what we were going to do about getting to
Chiang Mai. We decided a logical first step was a visit to the train station.
However upon speaking with the information desk when we arrived, we soon
discovered why people should be booking these trains in advance! The overnight
sleepers on the trains were booked out for the next three days in both 1st and
2nd class! So we could either wait three days, take a 14 hour day service or
travel overnight in a seat. We chose the latter and the next night consisted of
12 very uncomfortable hours of squirming to get comfortable and not being able
to stretch out our legs due to the wall in front of our seats. We were however
pleasantly surprised at receiving a free dinner & breakfast on board,
always appreciated, especially on a backpackers budget.
We stayed at the Imm Hotel Tha Pae Gate in Chiang Mai,
thanks to a suggestion from a friend, thanks Nicole. So we’ve been feeling a
little spoilt for our first week of a backpacking holiday. The joys of cheap
Thailand! We ended up staying a full week in Chiang Mai and found plenty to do.
We’ve done so much already, but here’s a short summary of
some of the things we did in Chiang Mai over the last week. We visited the
weekend markets in the old city which were so much better than the usual Thai
markets, very relaxed and no one hassling you for your business; we visited a
beautiful Buddhist temple on a mountain overlooking Chiang Mai, enjoyed free vodka
jelly shots with the Executive producer of Rambo 4, turns out he is married to
a thai woman and runs a bar in Chiang Mai when he’s not making movies; enjoyed
massages & did a lot of walking!
The main two things we have done though are a 2 day jungle
trek and Zip-lining. They are the things that most people visit Chiang Mai for
and we definitely didn’t want to be missing out.
The trek was
definitely an interesting experience! Challenging, tiring, a little scary &
a lot of fun as well. We had booked a package which included a few hours of
walking combined with visits to waterfalls, an overnight stay in a hill tribe
camp, elephant riding, white water rubber rafting and bamboo rafting. Needless
to say trekking in the jungle in humid weather is not exactly my idea of a good
time. We were covered in sweat within minutes of starting but it did help that
over the course of the two days we got to stop and swim at 3 different
waterfalls.
Our overnight stay was somewhat challenging. Firstly, the
description of staying with a ‘hill tribe’ was a bit misleading. What was a few
bamboo huts on a hill was more of a ‘stop-over campground’ for trekkers, and at
best somewhere the rice paddy workers could stay in harvest season. Never the
less, it felt very authentic, with open walled eating and camp fire huts and
one very long enclosed hut with a single bed spanning the length of the room in
which everyone on the trek shared for the night. But I think the biggest
struggle for everyone on the trek (and certainly for me) was not the solid bed,
or the holes in the mosquito nets, it was the local ‘wild life’. The jungle
absolutely springs to life once the sun goes down. While there are thousands of
harmless frogs in the nearby rice paddies, there are also rats and a never
ending supply of jungle spiders. Between every post was a web, and in every
roof there were many. On top of that, our crazy guide had a bit of a thing for
searching for spiders and then bringing them back to the group to see. Most
were harmless (not fatal to humans) but he also brought us a deadly Tarantula
which could kill within hours! As I said, crazy guide. But overall, the trek was
a lot of fun and quite rewarding.
The Zip-lining on the other hand was only a struggle for Jesper,
who has a slight fear of heights. But he did it with us none the less (what a
trooper!) We were teamed up with a few other thrill seekers from around the
globe and assigned yet another crazy guide. This time however, the crazy guide
made the experience all the better. From his impeccable ‘it’s my first day’ act
to his Superman cape, he made the day so much fun. And the Zip-lining itself
was incredible! 34 zip-lines, 3 skybridges, 4 abseils and a tree spiral
staircase had our hearts racing for the better part of 3 hours.
So that was our week in Chiang Mai. From there we travelled
by mini-bus to Bangkok and on to Pattaya, the city of sex, alcohol &
ladyboys. More about that in the next chapter of our adventure….
