I am currently on a 15 hour train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok and I am listening to my trance playlist and I feel AMAZING! I can't believe I am actually doing this; I am actually backpacking around Asia and it is the greatest experience. Chaing Mai was incredible, we were supposed to only stay for 4 nights but that turned into 9 nights because I fell in love with the casual, lad back atmosphere. We were there during Songkram which was the Thai New Year and the way they celebrate their new year is to throw water over anyone and everyone, it used to be quite controlled with the locals just putting water on their family members because it represented something that I totally can't remember anymore! :( but now it is just a huge water fight with huge parties, it was amazing to experience as you will never experience anything like it anywhere else but one day of fighting was enough for me so we tried to avoid the water and tried to go to the cinema to see fast and furious 7 (it was one of the most incredible films I have seen yet) but on our way to the cinema we got a bucket of cold water thrown all over us from a passing car with people partying in the pick up truck section at the back. So my nice dress was soaked!! We decided we wouldn't be able to make it to the cinema without getting soaked so we just had to embrace it, we agreed that because it was a 5k walk we may have dried by the time we got there and we were right! We managed to avoid most of the little armies and got to the cinema almost dry. On the third day of Songkram we decided to embrace the fighting again and made our way into the city to get some food. We sat down in the local markets with a drink and some rice, the table next to us consisted of one very crazy American guy and his beautiful Thai wife who was visiting relatives. They were the funniest people I have spoken to in a long time and they invited us to their table so we could join in with their food as they had bought enough to feed an army. They handed me a chicken skewer with some yummy looking sauce on and told me to try it, it was delicious and I ate two more. I then find out that it was chicken bum that I just fed on, well it was delicious!
After Songkram finished we went on a 2 day trek in the mountains north of Chiang Mai. Once again, this was an amazing experience, our group was only a group of 9, Alex and I being one group and then 7 others who were working in Chiang Mai for a month. The whole group were really inspiring and it turns out they are all landscapers and they get to travel around the world and stay in each place for a month whilst they work on a project. It sounded like such an amazing opportunity and I was inspired by their 'you only live once' nature. Our first stop on the trek was a local market to pick up supplies for our lunch and dinner, one of our group members bought a bag of fried bugs (yes, I am telling the truth) we all had a long journey in a cramped pick up truck and everyone was trying their first bugs, at first I declined because the idea made me feel sick but then it seemed everyone loved them! They were all eating the bugs as though they were chocolates or nuts so I decided to try one, I don't know what it was but it was like a huge maggot the size of a 1 aud coin. IT WAS DISGUSTING and I am never trying it again!! I could taste the mushiness of the insides of the bug and I could hardly swallow it.
The next stop was elephant riding, this was something that I really wanted to experience because elephants are my favourite animals and I wanted to get close to the gorgeous creatures. However, I now understand that riding the elephants is cruel and it is awful that tourists like me are paying so much money to keep the cruelty going. It hurt so much whilst riding the elephant because he looked so sad and tired. The only thing that made me feel a little better was the fact that I went with a tour group who appreciate the elephant's well-being and treat it more kindly. I still would never suggest someone should do this whilst in Asia because the elephants deserve to be free. After riding elephants we went on our trek which was a 3 hour hike straight up a mountain with no breaks and no flat land at all! It was complete torture and the heat was killing me but I would do it all again to achieve the views that we did at the top of the mountain, it was so beautiful and felt so untouched. We stayed in a simple bamboo hut in a hill-tribes village. After a huge and very yummy local meal our group sat out all night playing a card game called resistance, I had never heard of it before but it was so much fun and I wanted to keep playing forever! We all chipped in for two bottles of rum that we got through very quickly. As it got to about 11pm we decided it was time to head to bed as we were up at 6 to see the sunrise, have breakfast and hike to a waterfall.
The waterfall wasn't as impressive as it sounded due to the fact that we were hiking at the very end of the dry season but it was still a refreshing place to swim and relax. The walk down was a lot easier as we got to the bottom by 10am so it was still cool. This is when we started our white water rafting which wasn't so white water, again due to the dry season, but it was fun and exciting as we kept getting stuck on rocks and had to jump from one side of the boat to the other to free us and it got very close to capsizing a couple of times. After white water rafting we got a small trip on a bamboo raft and had lunch. Finally it was time to head home and we were all exhausted so it was a very quiet drive back. The next day my legs were burning like they have never burned before so we got a Thai massage which was so refreshing but also very strenuous as they stretched you into positions that I will never be able to repeat.
Overall Chaing Mai was incredible but I am excited for the next adventure in Bangkok.