Trekking in Northern Thailand

Trip Start Aug 16, 2005

Trip End ??? ??, 2006

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Flag of Thailand Chaing Mai, Thailand
Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Chaing Mai is Thailands second city, and a world apart from Bangkok., it is greener, cooler, quieter and friendlier. We stayed in a lovely guesthouse run by a Thai family who lived there as well, so it felt very homely. The main attractions of Chaing Mai are Thai cookery courses (not for us!) and trekking in the mountains which surround it. We booked through the guest house to do a two day tour, with an overnight stay in the jungle.

The first day was transporting us to the mountains, and then trekking straight up for about 1000m, to the top of the mountain where a hill tribe village is loacted, precariously hanging on to the mountain side. The hill tribes are mainly people who have mover backwards and forwards across the Thai/Burmese boarder over the years, and have settled in the mountains, they now make a decent living from tourism and selling their handicrafts in local markets

After trekking

. There is a lot of exploitation of certain of the tribes.

The overnight stay was in a traditional hill tribe hut, made entirely from bamboo, which was probably the most uncompfortable nights sleep any of us have ever had. An experience though. The next day we did a bit more treking to some elphnts where we had a ride for about an hour, it was truly amazing, they are so gentle, and Dunc even got to sit on our elephants neck, like a proper mahout. There was a lot of smiling! After this we went white water rafting, which was surprisingly good, as there has been a lot fo rain and the river is high, and then a bit of bamboo rafting (much tamer) before, very tired and dirty we headed home for a shower!

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