BANGKOK, CHANG MAI AND NORTHERN HILL TRIBE TREK

Hi Guys,

Sorry it has taken so long for us to post our first blog but we have been in a few remote areas over the last week! Done so much already….

Arrived in Bangkok on Friday late afternoon. Driving to our hotel the city appeared very smoggy, but it was about 6.30 - 7pm by this time so the sun was going down too. Took about an hour to get to our hotel, the taxi journey only costing 450BHT (£9 for an hours trip!!) Our hostel “Sleep With Inn”. was nice, with clean rooms, shower, loo and sink. Flat screen tv, fridge, and a safe!! The only down side is that we ended up with a room at the front, which was right above a bustling street, just off Koh San Road. Our first sample of the local food…..Lee tried Sweet Mango with Sticky Rice, 20BHT (40p) from an old lady, with funny looking teeth!! And I had Pad Thai, 25BHT (50p) it was yummy. Lee sampled the local beer, Singah.

Checked into our next hotel where we joined our GAP Tour at Hotel De Moc. Peace and quiet at least! Ventured out to MBK shopping mall. Not what I was expecting. It was more like an indoor 7 storey, air conditioned market than a mall. Managed to sneak in a breakfast at Starbucks though! Spent a few hours there. Lee managed to get a Rolex (the real thing of course, lol!) Lots of jeans, jewellery and bag shops! In the evening we met up with our Tour. Our guide, Albert seems a really nice guy. Lived in the states for 5 years, (which is where he got his name Albert) but has spent the rest of his life in Bangkok. There are 15 people in our group, mixture of English, Aussie, Swiss, and Canadian. All seem very nice. Only one other guy in the group, so Lee is surrounded by ladies! One thing Albie and Lee have in common is Chelsea…what a surprise! He’s made a new best friend! We all walked to Koh San Road, and had a team bonding dinner, good chance to get to know some of the others in the group. Had a mooch around Koh San shops after dinner, and found our way back to the hotel by Tuk-Tuk…very fun!!!

Next day we visited The Grand Palace, Wat Pho, Wat Arun (3 main temples in Bangkok) with Albert. Very interesting, learnt a lot about Buddhism!! A fascinating religion! After our day of temples we headed to Bangkok train station to catch our sleeper train! Pleasantly surprised with the train, wide beds, bedding provided, toilet was disgusting, but is to be expected. I ended up sleeping on the bottom bunk with Lee half way through the night as the top bunk was very cold, and bright as they don’t turn off the lights.

Arrived in Chiang Mai the next morning and checked into our hotel ready for our Northern Hill Trek the following day. Chiang Mai is a lot more relaxed than Bangkok. We left for our Trek around 9.30 the next morning. Pilled in the back of the truck and headed up into the hills! We started walking around midday. Our trek guide Nong, and his porters Nicky (Bad Boy) & Fuu lead us through the tree’s, up hills, down hills, through streams, everything. We walked for around 3 hours the first day, to our first village. Had lovely Thai Green curry for dinner, and played card games around the camp fire. Was a very cold night, and woke at around 4-5am to the cockerels, cows and dogs!! After breakfast we started to walk again, this time for around 4 hours, lots more hills this time. Very hard work! Lots of different terrain from grass, gravel, dirt, clay!! I stacked it just as we arrived at the Elephants, went down on my bum! We stopped for a break before mounting our elephant for the ride! This was a strange experience, quite bumpy. I never realised that elephants could walk on such small path ways!!! Quite scary at times! Once we got off our elephants it was about a 10 min walk to our next village. This village was a lot bigger than the last. It had a school, and a church. Again, we had dinner and played games around the camp fire..The Panda game!! We all ended up with panda eyes, whiskers and noses by the end of it, using the charcoal of the bottom of a pan! Another cold night, woken by the animals! Our walking was over now, so to head back we took a bamboo raft!! This was sooo much fun!! There were about 5 to a raft, plus trek guides steering. The river got a bit rough at times, little rapids!! Lee and his new mate Benton were helping Nong to steer, whilst me and the 2 other girls were told to sit down…got quite wet!! Took us about 3 hours to get down river on the rafts, where we stopped for lunch and got back in the truck to head back to Chiang Mai. Once we were back we had a well deserved shower, went out for some food and visited the night market where Lee picked up some Diesel jeans and Ralph Lauren Polo! Out last night in Chiang Mai before we head back to Bangkok on the sleeper train.