Chiang Mai

The final leg of our long trip – trekking in Chiang Mai. Sarah and I had booked this trek (2 days, 1 night) a few days before we went and boy was that lucky. When we got there, the hostel we had booked through was FULL! That was the first full hostel we had encountered in Asia (the one in Hanoi was close to it, but not quite). We were staying at Julie Guest House and booked our trek through them and their travel agency on location. We left the next morning (Monday morning) at 9:30. They gave us a list of things we should bring and even lent Sarah a small backpack for the trek. We headed out in search of an internet café because Sarah and I thought we were suppose to do our quiz that afternoon but that turned out to not be the case. Our teacher had decided we should take the quiz after everyone else, not before. I don’t know if we were confused on the dates or what but we weren’t suppose to take the quiz that night. But, since that would be our last internet access until we got back to Little Rock, we checked in with our family and friends and then headed for the Sunday market. Well we had just gotten to buy a pair of really neat handmade wooden earrings when it started pouring. Sadly we didn’t get to see the rest of the market. Good thing too because sometime around now I realize that I don’t have my credit card. I brought two to Asia, one with most of my money and then the other one. The one with most of my money was gone. MIA. No clue where it was. I checked everywhere but I didn’t have it. Many things had gone missing in Ko Chang, we added it to the list of casualties. I ran back to the internet café and caught it as it was closing. I got a hold of my mother, via my sister and a complicated phone/internet combo and managed to get her to cancel the card for me and there hadn’t been any fraudulent charges and so they ordered me a new one right away. Phew, disaster averted. Only problem was I had basically no money left because the card I had with me had about 100 bucks left on it. I quickly transferred money to that account but of course that takes 3 days. I had mom see if they could rush it and they said they would try (turned out it only took about 2 days so that was nice). All I had to pay for was the trek, the hostel, and the airport taxes and fees, oh and one or two meals, but still, I was a little worried.

Monday morning arrives and we hurry downstairs, check out, leave our luggage with the hostel and bring a small backpack with us for this adventure. A pickup truck arrives to carry the 13 of us, our guide, and our driver up to the mountains. 3 of us (me and two of the 3 Irish sisters along on the trip) squeeze in the front of the truck and the rest sit in the back of the pickup which has been turned into two long covered benches. We stopped along the way at a market so we could buy water and snacks. I got some of the most glorious food Asia has to offer that Nicky introduced me to: Coconut covered peanuts. I eat them by the bags. They are awesome. Dude, miss them already. Our guide bought fried bugs. Well, back in the front of the truck, one of the Irish girls turns to me and says “would you try a bug with me?”. Now, we aren’t sure whether theses are roaches, crickets or some nondescript Asia bug, but our guide it popping them in his mouth like we would eat popcorn at a movie. So, I agree to it. She and I each eat a bug. Yes, I have pictures. We both chomped it about 2 times and then swallowed it and chugged water from our Nalgenes. The bug was about the size of my pinky finger. It was crunchy and weird texture but not the worst thing I have ever eaten. It is probably better than ham and I know it is better than snake wine!

Finally we stop the truck and we have arrived at the elephant riding part of the trek. Hell of a way to start, right? Well, being an odd number of 13, one elephant must have 4 girls which means that one must ride directly on the elephant while the other 12 ride on the basket type thing on top of the elephant. Now one would think that I would jump to volunteer to be that one girl, and I would have had I been paying attention, but the oldest Irish sister beat me to it. Luckily though, she was on my elephant with me. Now we rode these beautiful elephants all through the jungle while they chomped off tree branches, showered us with snot and water and swatted away millions of bugs. About half way through the Irish sister got tired of being on the elephant and asked someone to switch with her. I was wide awake this time and jumped at the opportunity. I got to ride DIRECTLY on the elephants back. Now I haven’t ever ridden a horse bareback but now I can officially say I have ridden an elephant bareback. Again, yes I promise there are pictures. Beautiful scenery, awesome elephant adventure.

After the elephants we did lunch, which was some homemade Thai rice dish, we drove another 30-45 minutes into the jungle and then we got out and were told to start walking. And walk we did, for 2.5 hours, straight up a mountain. So much sweat, so many bugs, so so awesome. We walked past waterfalls (small ones we were told compared to tomorrows) and we walked with elephants at one point. We learned about some random plants that grow including one that blows bubbles and one that fakes it’s dead if you touch it. The jungle rocks! This whole time we are carrying all 2 liters of water we were told to buy and everything else we brought (thank God I packed light!). Anyway, we did make it to the tribal villages on the top of the mountain eventually and it was well worth it. The last bit of the hike was kind of trippy – it was through a corn field, yes a corn field (I checked what grew under the stalks) and that made for many a “children of the corn” references. But, what a view from the top!

Now, just a word of caution, these tribal village stays aren’t really what they sound like. I pictured some homestay with a traditional tribal family that spoke no English. That isn’t quite the case. That isn’t to say that the experience isn’t completely lovely, because it is very cool, but it isn’t quite the authentic view of tribal life they paint for you. What actually happens is your hike up through the village to the outskirts where a number of bamboo huts that are very thin and long have been built. Inside these long huts are a center room which has a fire and can serve as a camp fire location, dining room, and optional opium den – yes, keep in mind you are in the golden triangle. Attached to this center room is a kitchen, which you never enter, a cooler which houses the beer, water, and sodas they charge you for (NO drinks are included in your trekking price but all food is). To the other side is a giant sleeping area with about 14 beds and each pair is under a large, old, mosquito net. These beds are really mats with sheets and woolish blankets. But hey, it’s all part of the experience. Notice that I haven’t mentioned a bathroom? That is because it is downstairs and in an outhouse style. There are two pit toilets and two bucket showers / faucets for the group. Nothing warm about any of this water but hey, you just hike 5 miles up a mountain so you don’t mind the cooler water. Oh, also, when they tell you to bring long sleeved stuff for the night, they aren’t lying. It gets cool outside on top of that mountain at night. Also, flashlights are essential. Headlights are even better. They ONLY have candles up here, electricity hasn’t quite made it. The lack of electricity means that you can see for MILES and that it is really dark and silent at night. It is truly a superb view. Lovely, just lovely. Oh, last thing to mention. DEET is a blessing. Both Sarah and I, being public health nerds, were constantly covered in DEET. Immediately after my shower I smothered myself with more DEET cream. The smell of sweat, sunscreen, and DEET and the fact that when it all combines it forms a greasy coat on your skin – that grows on you eventually. But hey, I didn’t get one mosquito bite that evening and most everyone else did!

In the morning we woke up much earlier than we thought, basically soon after sunrise. The top of the mountain where we were sleeping was covered in fog. It was cool and beautiful and muggy and awesome. We ate American breakfast of white bread, hard boiled egg and pineapple jelly. One piece of toast and an attempt at eating a hard boiled egg later I was eating those beautiful coconut peanuts and chugging the tea I had brought. The green tea up in that area is also different. It is very bitter. This is true of most all of the green tea I had in SE Asia. Also, it is loose tea and not strained. But, I really liked it, many did not though. The coffee was all instant though so tea was a better call in my opinion.

After breakfast we were given 30 minutes to pack, get ready, and meet to walk down the 5 miles we walked up before. Now, we took a different way down, a steeper (which we didn’t think was possible) was down. Honestly a number of us fell and all of us had loose feet at some point. We were forging rivers and using trees as a source of balance and all that great natural stuff. Finally, we got to the giant waterfall for most all of us stripped down to our bathing suits and got in – we were hot, greasy from the DEET-sunscreen-sweat combo and ready to feel clean. The waterfall was much stronger than you thought it was by looking at it and basically it tried to steal your clothes off you. Naughty waterfall.

After the 30 minute break at the falls, we walked along the river bed for about an hour until we reached a road and the river fed into a giant river. Now it was time for lunch and then rafting. At lunch, we were surrounded by chickens, roosters, and baby chicks – we fed them our pad thai (which has eggs!) – bad job us! I was careful to pick out the egg and only feed them the tofu and noodles. The big ones would steal food from the babies so we all tried to make sure to feed them when they were alone. During lunch it started to rain, not that we cared since we were about to get wet white water rafting. We all got on our neon orange life vest and matching helmets and got into our rafts. We couldn’t wear long pants (shorts or just your bathing suit) and NO shoes allowed during this rafting adventure. Our guide began to loving call the boat of 6 females he got “lady boys” aka whimps in his vocabulary. Sarah and I were in front basically power steering the thing. It started off rather slow but it got really fun once we got stuck a few times and had to throw ourselves from one side of the boat to the other and then we hit some GIANT rapids and that was pretty great as well. At one point, the guide tells us to strip off the life jackets and helmets and leave them in the boat, get out of the boat, and walk/swim over to these giant bamboo rafts. Now these bamboo rafts are nothing more than long pieces of bamboo held together by shredded tires (what is it with shredded tires and me this trip?). Somehow these things stay semi-afloat with 5 people sitting on them balancing in the middle. One person, and I went first at this, stands up and with another piece of bamboo tries to guide the boat. Many of us took turns doing this. At one point the bamboo raft was sinking so far, and it was pouring out so much that a number of us abandoned ship and just started swimming next to it.

After these two rafting adventures Sarah and I notice the time and realize we have about 2 hours to get back to the hostel and get to the airport to make our plane. The rest of the group is still taking their time looking at pictures and changing clothes and whatnot. Sarah and I grab our stuff and wait impatiently until the rest of the people join us. We have a smaller truck bed and only one person sits in front this time (not me) and we drive straight back to the hostel (one stop to drop two French girls at their hostel) and Sarah and I run, seriously RUN, to our hostel and grab our stuff (much to the dismay of the people who own the hostel who try to yell at us to slow down) and run back to the main road (the hostel is down an alley) and try desperately to grab a ride to the airport. We snag a tuk-tuk (moto bike with some seats attached) who crams our luggage onto the back, we jump on top of it and yell airport as fast as you can. He understands, breaks many a traffic laws and gets us there in about 7 minutes. We over tip him generously and check out watches to see we have about 25 minutes til our flight leaves. Thank God Chiang Mai is a tiny airport, that is all I can say. We did make the flight, barely, but we made it. And thank God because we had to be at the Bangkok airport at 6am the next morning and we would never have made it back from Chiang Mai if we had missed that flight (the last of the evening). Now, Sarah and I haven’t showered or changed since rafting. I want you to keep that in mind when you picture this airport seen. Sarah is in boxers and a sleeveless shirt. I am in the pants I wore trekking for two days and a black tank top that has giant white streaks from the DEET and sunscreen and has also been worn for 2 days now. We look HOT!

We met Nicky at the skytrain stop nearest her apartment, which was Nana just like the Ambassador hotel had been. We got showered, changed, found food and passed out. 4 hours later we got up and headed to the Bangkok airport to head home. We got to the airport really early. We found food and ate a huge breakfast – trying to spend all our left over baht in the process. We got on the plane to Tokyo (6-7 hour flight) where we get bulkhead seats but it is still really uncomfortable. I pass out for about 4.5-5 hours of the flight and we land in Tokyo where we have a short layover that is complicated by our having to get our tickets reissued for some reason. I pay 6 dollars for a smoothie (which I didn’t know at the time) and I eat a green tea kit kat – which was strange. Sarah and I make our flight back to Dallas and I am awake the entire 13 hour flight. I watched 5 movies. In Dallas we once again RUN to catch our plane to Little Rock but this time, we make it. We are home at last!! I was already missing those coconut peanuts and that beautiful scenery…..