The best day of my life so far.
Trip Start
Unknown
1
5
Trip End
Ongoing
Chiangmai, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Monday, February 15, 2010
What a surprise another early start-7am. had our free breakfast, toast, which i thought tasted like popcorn..so i loved it :) and fruit.
minibus arrived at 8, we were the first on.
after 20 odd minutes we had finally picked everybody up from their hotels, and headed south off chaing mai, approx 1hr drive to the elephant camp.
me and caroline were the only 2 british,
2 isralies
2 germans
i think 4 spanish
1 chinese
and two others that we didnt get chance to talk to.
our guide was called bum, but prefered to be called tom. and the driver was called tum but prefered tony..was as funny hour drive.!
whilst on the bus, at the back, i sneezed quite loud, which made me laugh, then everyone shouted bless you and turned round, which set me off even more..giggles and all.
ok so we arrived at the elephant camp and there was about 6 elephants, tided up so they wouldnt wonder off, but not tide up so it was cruel, they had loads of space to walk around and they seemed really happy.
our guide directed us across the new bridge that had been built, due to the old bridge looking..well fragile would be a understatment.
on the other side, 3 elephants made thier way up the embankment after crossing the river. folled by a baby, and the water went up to his shoulders, so adorable.!
next minute caroline and myself, found ourself sitting on a huge elephant. she was tied to another elephant which we thought was a bit cruel until we found out they were sister's.
we 1st called our elephant nessie, but decided nessa would be more appropreate, as the the elephant infront was called stacey and the elephant guide was called gavin! haha i joke!
anyway, so we start on our 1 hour treck on elephant back, through the woods, and down the river, it was amazing and i will never forget it. the trainers were laughing and joking, and seemed like thye really cared about the elephants, who also seem like they enjoyed the walks etc..
once we arrived back at the camp, we had the chance of buying a massive bunch of bananas, for 20baht=less than 50p
caroline and myself fed the mojarity of the elephants, not to leave any out. they were soo gentle. i hardly noticed them scooping up the banana from my hand with thier massive trunk. there such a friendly animal, i wouldnt hesitate to go up to one ever.
after feeding a few, we gave the rest of the bananas to the baby, who was full of life.
he picked a guy up with his trunk, whilst playing was soo funny..
a lady took a picture of us whilst on the treck so we bought that for 150baht=3pound.
i suppose, it helps her living as well, an easy way of earning a little extra cash.
after, we got the minibus, up to a small village in the mountains of a population of 400max, we looked around at thier lifestyle and watched them make the most beautiful and colourful kaftans.
shortly after we took a 1 mile walk, to a gorgeous waterfall, people swam in the water, whereas me and caz just took pictures, as the water wasnt very clear + it was cold.
after another much longer walk, which would have been manageable in england, but when your in thailand with heat of 30++ it was a tad different + the hills.
the minibus met us at the end of the road, and took us to a local, quite and open restaurant for the local delacacy, which was lovely but hot.. the fruit here is amazing,, so sweet and mouth watering..i could live off the pineapple..people sell a 1/4 of a pineapple on the streets, thats kept cool by the ice, and sell it for just 20baht, oh an how can i forget they place it in a bag and chop it in thier hand with a machety...madness!!!
we sat with the isralies, talking about everything and anything.
they were on thier honeymoon, and for there wedding they had 450 guests
they had a cat called olly after reading a britsih book, they found it hilarious that olly was a british name.
once on the bus we started to drive down the road when the isralie why realised that her husband wasnt sat next to her and shouted stop so they could wait for him.
after another short bus drive, we arried at a small rafting area, where you could white water raft or bamboo raft... we all mounted on to about 4 bamboo rafts, which were 15ft long, not good with measurements but they were really long.
we had a guide who steared, me and caroline, who opted to stand all the way down the river, instead of sitting and getting a wet bum, it was alot funnier standing up, and deffinately tested our balance, esp on the white water bits. also the 2 germans were sat on the end of the bamboo.
we went for quite a while30-45minutes, the scenery was beautiful, we went past lots of wood+mud huts, past the local thai teenagers who sat on the wooden stilt platforms just chilling in the sun.
near the end, where there was more thai children, we started a water fight, and after staying dry and not falling in, we got completely drenched.
at the very end you could get off or go down a more faster and rocker white water bit, no need to guess to be hounest, caz and myself defo went for it.,
when we got off we saw the most adorable puupy, who weighed next to nothing, was super furry, which was more static than flat fur.
eventually after getting dry and stoped playing with the funny puppy, we headed home and pretty much everyone fell asleep.
we had a scrumy tea, after another fustrating hour on the internet, all i want is too update this blog and contact home..not much
oh and then to top the day off me and caz where lying on our beds listening to our mp3s, when all of a sudden we both got a really good song and started singing really loudly and badly!!! was soo funny we were crying with laughter, we reinacted it and filmed it..too cool for school.
x
