Day 19 Thailand - Chiang Mai and Bangkok

As of this writing I'm now in the big city of Bangkok. I spent the last week in the north Thailand city of Chiang Mai.



Chiang Mai



Some notable things that I did here:



1) Eco-Trekking: This was a tour set up by a local tour agency near our hostel. We did some hiking in the jungles north of the city, elephant back riding, and ended the day with bamboo rafting.

In the jungles north of Chiang Mai.

The elephant back ride was fun but also a bit nauseating. At first it was cool being there on the back of this huge animal, but then after a while I started getting car/elephant sick. It was a very bumpy ride, we sat in these two person seats on the back of the elephant and you could feel every movement the elephant was making. At one point the elephant started rubbing its butt against a tree which was pretty funny.

Here's a picture of our elephant (a male and quite rebellious) getting his greens. As you can see, our mahout (elephant caretaker and driver) is getting his greens too, through a blunt (I urge you, if you ever happen to go elephant riding, to stay away from mahouts that smoke cuz this guy's blunt kept wafting back at us which exacerbated my nausea.)

Elephant crossing.

View from my elephant of another couple on their's.

As for the bamboo rafting, that was real fun. Four people from our group got on a small raft made of bamboo and we had a guide in front who would use a bamboo pole to guide the way. I was in the rear with another bamboo pole and I would take directions from the guy up front. This was a pretty good balance exercise since I was standing the whole way (I almost fell once). We rafted down a semi-fast river through the jungle, taking in some really nice sights.

(No photos for bamboo rafting, I couldn't bring my camera)

There was one downer though. After we finished rafting, 4-5 people from another tour group were rafting below and their raft got overturned. One of the girls was underwater for a good 10 seconds before resurfacing because the raft was above her head while she was underwater. The guide and other locals managing the activity went down to help the group and managed to get two girls out of the water. Since the current was too strong, the others just got on an unmanned raft that the locals floated their way and floated down the river to another stopping area. I was glad no one got seriously injured.

2) Thai Cooking Course

This was real fun and tasty. In this one day course, I got to learn how to make 1) Tom Kaa Chicken Coconut Soup 2) Red Curry w/Chicken 3) Chicken Cashew Nut Stir Fry 4) Pad Thai 5)Pumpkin Coconut Soup, and of course I got to eat everything I made which if I may so, wasn't half bad.

Lower left: Red Curry w/ Chicken, Upper Middle: Tom Kaa, Lower Right: Chicken Cashew. My favorite would have to be the Chicken Cashew.

3) Thai Massage and Foot Massage

I got my first Thai massage in Chiang Mai and it was brutally relaxing. They laid me down on a mat and for 30 mins (you can also do a 1 hr session) they destroyed me. Basically Thai massage is like having someone force you do yoga while pressing your muscles at key pressure points. The foot massage was also very nice, though it made me want to laugh/cry at times. According to my masseuse (?) each section of the foot correlates to different organs and places in the body which I found interesting.

Bangkok

I don't have too much to say about Bangkok since I've only been here on two previous stop overs and this is only the 2nd day of my longstay here. It is definitely a lot more busy then Chiang Mai and there are certain aspects of the city that turn me off (various guys at the night market asked my girlfriend and I if we wanted to see a ping-pong show, which we turned down [the show seems to involve a ping-pong and the female anatomy]).

I will probably have more to say in the coming days.

Till then.