We took the plane from Bangkok to Chiang Mai and were picked up by Chan who would be our guide for the next 3 days.
But first we explored the charming little city, checked out the night bazaar, an arts and crafts market that opens every night at 6 p.m. with an amazing selection of really well-made furniture, accessoires, paintings... enough to furnish several houses, tasteful and special... luckily I don't have a house to furnish at the moment, otherwise it would have been really hard to decide.
On our way back we accidentally passed through Loi Kroh Road where various massage salons offered their service. Business was going slow (it's still pre-season here) and most salons looked a bit dodgey and we doubted their intentions... However, only later we found out that this was the city's red light district... no wonder the girls wore skimpy outfits and massages were done in darkened rooms...
The next morning we were picked up by Chan's brother and together with another German couple we started our trip to the jungle, northwest of Chiang Mai.
On our way we passed a local market to look at half-alive fish in plastic bags, pig heads and various unidentifiable foods, but nobody was really hungry.
Then we entered the National Park where we could swim at the bottom of a waterfall. The water pressure was quite rough and as romantic as it sounds, it's not really fun to stand under water falling several ten meters high... Luckily we were the first group enjoying the dip, after us the small pool got quite crowded with other trekking groups.
Back on the road we stopped along the road to try local food (sticky rice cooked in bamboo sticks)
And then it was time to get active. We shouldered our backpacks with our stuff for the next 3 days and off we went through dense, green forest. Chan guided us along a path that didn't look well worn, he stopped here and there to explain us about some plants and fruits.
By the end of the day we arrived in the village Bong Noi which consists of 49 people. In fact, the youngest inhabitant was just a few months old and had the nick name Fortynine. We also met Fortyeight and Fortyseven who were slightly older.
The villagers were quite shy and because of the language barrier they preferred not to communicate with us. But we still enjoyed their hospitality in their simple wood huts and Chan cooked great green curry for us.
The next morning we walked through the village and witnessed daily routine of the village life. Pigs had to be fed, cows to be milked, rice to be peeled, chicken to be released and much more. All done by the women. Men we only saw sitting relaxed in front of their house or on the way to the field.
After another few hours of hiking we arrived at the elephant camp, where we had a dip in the river to cool off and then we were sitting on benches on the elephants back for the rest of the trek, which was really wabbly and unstable and I wished for seatbelts... It was again amazing to be so close to these giants and great to watch how the mahout guides them only with his voice (which sound like "huh" to us) and the elephants so patiently obeyed every signal. No mocking around, no testing the boundaries, if only the elephant knew that he is stronger...
All in all it was a special experience but I think I will never enjoy elephant riding as much as I do horse-riding...
The following night we spent in another village, which is only called Lahu-village, because the Lahu a Chinese minority are living here. Unfortunately many tourists were coming through that village (even though we didn't see any), but almost every woman was trying to sell us souvenirs which they had probably bought from the big Chiang Mai markets. It was hard to send them away and I regretted that they couldn't offer anything selfmade, well I regretted that they needed to sell stuff to tourists at all.
Our hosts (we never got their name, Chan did all the talking) entertained us with traditional music by the fireplace on the terrace overlooking the river, which created a nice atmosphere had I only not broken the toilet and flooded the whole place... It looked like in order to host tourists it was required to provide a toilet connected to a pipe-system (even in Switzerland on the mountain huts the simple latrine did the job) and of course the plastic pipes failed eventually...
However, the issue was solved pragmatically.
The next morning we had the pleasure to try local deep fried maggots which looked disgusting as long as they lived, but deep fried they tasted like nothing else but grease and were as crunchy as chips.
The highlight of our jungle tour was yet to come. Whatever I thought "bamboo rafting" would be, I didn't expect it literally. It was a raft consisting of a few bamboo logs, tied together with some leaves. We all had to stand on it, of course water came through the gaps, so wet feet guaranteed. After we all stood on it Chan decided to extend the width by adding 2 logs which was done within minutes. Nobody of us was really confident, that this thing should safely transport us through the rapids of the river.
However, after 90minutes standing and getting drenched we've had enough and were happy to get ashore for nice padthai lunch and some dry cloths.
On our way back to Chiang Mai we stopped at another local market where more insects were on offer but we refused. We also visited a butterfly and orchid farm, but all this was just tame finish of some great jungle adventure!
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