Another week has been and gone and what a week this one has been! Week 14 of our round the world tour saw our return to Thailand, expect this time, we were heading north!
We flew from Hanoi to Chiang Mai last Sunday for, as the accompanying photo album suggests, a week of trekking, tigers and Thai cooking courses :-). Unlike our previous visit to Thailand, we would not be sunbathing on star ridden beaches or desperately trying to cure a hangover whilst lazing by a pool, no no, this visit was due to be far busier.
We had been planing this week for a while and we were really looking forward to our return to Thailand. For all three of us, Thailand has arguably been our favourite country in South East Asia and our time in Chiang Mai only confirmed these thought further.
We began our week in impressive style with a elephant trek through the mountains of Chiang Mai! These elephant, apart from their obvious beauty, were amazingly clever. Their brains are smaller than their hearts yet their memories and skill were incredibly. We watched an elephant show and saw the elephants demonstrate how they have learnt to dance (yes they danced to YMCA), play football and even paint! I know I'm a terrible artist (year 8 art with Mr Lloyd will always be imprinted on our brains Miss Waldman and Miss Stafford haha) but these paintings were so good. The older elephant (Suda) even wrote her name on her masterpiece!
We then had a few hours to play with the elephants, watch them being bathed and feed them before going on our trek. For those who haven't been on an elephant but plan on, a word of warning, it isn't a smooth ride haha! We had a great time and the experience was indescribable but boy did we ache the next morning haha!
This week we also visited the Karen Longneck Hilltop tribe. This tribe is famous in Chiang Mai (and around the world) as the women of the tribe have permanent metal rings around their necks in order to lengthen them. Our tour guide told us that, back in the day, the men in the tribe started dressing their women with these rings to ensure they are recognisable to other tribes. They weren't very big on inter-tribal marriage apparently so this way males from other tribes were deterred from approaching them.
Today, the women still do it but purely out of tradition. All the girls are asked if they want to wear them (and some don't thus weren't) and if they say yes they begin wearing the rings at about 4-6 years old. An additional ring is added to their necks every 3-5 years so many of the older women have 15+ rings on. They are permanent features so the women wear them continuous, even at night.
The third highlight of our week was our visit to Tiger Kingdom (which ironically also had a lion resident haha). I was a bit dubious about the place as I was worried the animals would be chain down, mistreated or drugged into submission! Thankfully, none of this was apparent and all the animals seemed to be treated really well.
All the tigers at the sanctuary have been hard reared thus human contact is all they know. We enjoyed patting and playing with some very playful cubs and having a few cuddles with some incredibly lazy and probably bored adults! Tigers naturally sleep for 18 hours a day so I felt quite cruel that I was disturbing them from their naps but I was reassured when we were told that no tiger is exposed to the public for any longer than 4 hour a day. All in all, the tigers seemed incredibly well cared for and it is certainly another experience I will never forget.
Thursday was arguably my favourite day that we spent in Thailand. It was the day of our Thai cooking course. Bloody hell did we eat a lot! I was eating from 10am until 3! I felt like such a pig but I had to try all these dishes we were making haha.
During the day we were not only taught how to cook 6 different Thai dishes but we were also taken to a market and an organic herb garden to learn about all the various ingredients used in Thai cooking. Our instructor was brilliant and very funny.
As I said, we were taught how to cook 6 different dishes from a menu: a stir fry, a soup, an appetiser, a curry (and the accompanying paste, and a dessert. There was quite a lot of choice to choose from but I went for: stir fry chilli and basil chicken (with rice), tom yum soup (a very famous Thai dish which I'd never tried so thought I'd give it a go), spring rolls, panang curry and the paste and sticky mango rice (again a very popular Thai dessert which I was yet to try) - pics of all my dishes are, as always, on the blog. I wasn't particularly keen on the soup as it was way too spicey for me but everything else was so good, if I do say so myself :-).
So, if you play your cards right, all you lucky people at home may be in for a Thai feast upon my return :-)!
This week marked the end of our South East Asia experience and I think it's fair to say, we ended it in style. Over the past 7 weeks I have grown accustomed to this way of life and enjoyed the various element in the cultures of every country we've visited. From the mad streets of Ho Chi Minh to the silent paradise of the Perhentian Island. From partying on a beach to partying on the 57th floor of a sky scraper. Beaches to temples and trekking to craving, everything we've done has been incredible and memorable but now, alas, it's time for us to move on to our 10th and final country, India!
South East Asia, thank you, it's been a blast but let my gap-yah continue...