Thurs 5th March

Arrive Chiang Mai after a 15 hour journey on the night train, relaxed for the afternoon and met with our friends Ant and Nina whom we first met in Bangkok for drinks in the evening.

Fri 6th March

Another pretty relaxed day in preperation for our trek. Booked onwards travel, activities and accomodation etc. Got ourselves organised!
Spent the evening at the local Mauy Thai boxing stadium with Ant and Nina. Cracking night and plenty of KO's.
A great range of fighters from children to a big ripped up scottish contender! Very fast, powerful and entertaining.

Sat - Mon
3 days, 2 nights, 40km, 5 people, numerous BIG spiders and a guide called Doh!

*Note* When reading this extract you will see the word Doh used numerous times, this is not a homer simpson type expletive but in fact the name of our guide! */note*

No trip to Chaing Mai would be complete without a hefty trek up in the beautiful hills and jungles that surround this northern city. We decided to take the advice of the big yellow bible, our trusty lonely planet guide book and do the trek from our guest house eagle house 2. This trek was advertised as being about the most remote trek you could do from Chaing Mai and how the only people you would see for the next 3 days would be your guide, fellow trekkers and hill tribe people who live in the jungle. A little sceptical as my previous trek on my 2007 travels was advertised in a similar way but it turned out to be accurate and it was only 5 trekkers and of course Doh!

Day 1 - 07.30.....

Up bright and early for a light breakfast before being collected at 8.30. Had packed our wardrobe for the next 3 days and it had to be packed light! Met our fellow trekkers, Louise from Ireland and Canadian brother and sister Justin and Tracy. Everyone was very nice, we were looking forward to spending the next 3 days together! We all jumped in the back of what can best be described as a pickup truck with fitted roof and 2 bench seats running either side of the vehicle, no one was looking forward to the 2 hour drive to come later that day down some very uneven roads, in fact i feel generous calling them roads! First stop was the elephant camp for an hours elephant ride. Trish was very reluctant to par take due to feelings of cruelty towards the animal but however did have a ride. She enjoyed the initial 5 minutes but did not like the tactics of the mahoot (elephant keeper/rider) In getting the elephant to obey instruction. However we felt we did compensate the elephant by buying him bananas at every possible stop along the way! We then drove about 30 minutes for lunch, this was the first of many meals included on the trip. Doh turned out to be somewhat of a master chef and produced 5 neatly wrapped banana leaf parcels containing a large portion of noodles! Next came the dreaded 2 hour drive to the start of the trek path and was it bumpy!!! We were being thrown from our seats and bumped all over the place, was like being at alton towers, poor Louise was feeling a bit worse for wear when we arrived! So begins the trek, an 'easy' 10 km 3 hour walk to the hill tribe where we were to spend the night. This leg of the trek pretty much skirted the jungle and was pretty easy across flat plains and rice paddies. We walked through several hill tribe villages along the way and got a feel for their simple way of life. Its amazing how little these people live their lives with and they seem very happy and content. We watched as they used primitive tools to prepare rice and use the bamboo from the jungle around them to pretty much make anything you can imagine! We drank tea from bamboo cups, crossed bridges made from bamboo and toured homes made from this versatile wood. We arrived at the base of our home for the night and were instructed to wash in a rather dirty looking very cold river, all reluctant at first but once you were in it was actually pretty refreshing. The hill tribe were welcoming and had some beers waiting for us, dropped our belongings in the large bamboo hut which would serve as our hotel for the night! Doh disapeared into a different hut and with other tribe members prepared our feast for dinner, and was it a feast!! They cooked by candle light and Doih used many ingredients which he had picked from trees and bushes along the walk! We stuffed our faces and sat round the camp fire until about 10 and all conceded to sleep, it was going to be another early start tomorrow. The surprise that hit us all was how cold it got at night in the mountains. We had been used to no lower than 24 degrees and it must of got down to about 2/3 degrees! All we had to keep warm were blankets, fortunately as there were only 5 of us so there were plenty to go around!

Day 2 - 07.00......

After a very chilly and disturbed night sleep (by disturbed i heard cockrals cok-a-doo-in pretty much all night, pigs squealing and im certain i heard a gun shot!) at 7 we were all awoken to the sound of Doh doing his own rendition of a cockral type sound! Fortunately the camp fire was blazing and that was a damn sight warmer place to be than our "hotel"! Doh prepared a large breakfast and we were going to need it. We set off on the epic 24km walk to the next hill tribe at about 8.30, the temperature was already getting up and the idea was to get the bulk of the walking done before the heat of the day set in. This part of the trek really was as advertised, remote! We didn't see another sole literally all day. Doh took us deep into the Thai jungle, through some pretty unforgiving terrain. It all started off ok until we reached the first hill. I was thinking to myself we had already been up some pretty steep path ways but this one Doh was warning us about, it was going to be tough. It was more like a mountain to climb than a hill to walk up, it took over 10 minutes of exhausting work in the now 30 degree heat. I asked the stupid question, 'there isnt any more like that is there?' to find out there was indeed more, 3 more!!!! The scenery was stunning, we walked through thick canapes and crossed many small jungle streams. Had to be really careful with footing as in most parts the pathways got very narrow and were next to sheer drop offs, not to mention they were incredibly slippery due to the amount of dry leaves that covered them! We had been walking about 3 hours when the next hill stood ahead of us. This took a real effort to get up, i thought for s second it was going to break Louise and Trish but super human determination and lots of water got them through. At the top Doh produced a pineapple from his bag and chopped it for us, it had to be one of the nicest things we have ever eaten!! Another toughs hours walk took us to the resting point where again we were given our banana parcels containing lunch, we took an hours break and all fell into a exhaustion driven sleep. All dreading the 2 'moutains' that lay ahead we set off on the last leg of todays trek, it took about 2 hours to reach the river where we all throw ourselves in! The cold, fresh water felt amazing, we swam and cooled off and let out shouts of joy when Doh returned from his recky and discovered a bridge he thought was down had been repaired, no more hills today!!!! However we discovered 30 minutes later that a different bridge was now down and we did have to do 1 more hill, this one didnt seem as bad as the previous though! We arrived at the hill tribe at about 18.00, it was right by the river in a beautiful setting, it had been an epic walk! The evening was spent in a similar fashion to the previous, we toasted our success with a well needed chang! Doh appeared from the jungle with a large green pumpkin he was going to fry in with our dinner and turned out to be delicious! Trish, with her spider attracting radar on spots a black monster crawling its way above the bamboo just feet above her head. This puts us all on edge as we have to sleep in a similar structure the same evening! On a trip to the 'toilet' i discovered many other large spiders on the bamboo above, it was toilet time in the bush for us all tonight!! We sat round the camp fire singing Thai songs while Doh played a bongo style drum! With every available blanket rationed around the 5 of us we laid down for another cold nights sleep....!

Day 3 - 08.00.....

Awoke once more to Dohs jovial cockral impression, slept much better last night, must of been something to do with that stroll the day previous! Another big breakfast followed, i must say they really have fed us well! It was now down to the river for 2 hours bamboo rafting, i took the back of the 'craft' which had literally been completed the same morning with a large piece of bamboo to control it. After watching the Thai guy at the front i got the hang of it and it was plain sailing down the river! What we didnt anticipate was the amount of fast flowing rapids we would encounter on our modest vessel! We flowed down the beautiful river for about 2 hours through some pretty thick jungle, Trish had no less than 9 spiders run over her, and i noticed a large one on my shoulder just before it made it onto my face! We were so close to the finish line when i managed to jam my bamboo into a tree and have it whisked from my hand, it didnt infringe the journey but it would of been nice to finish with it in my hand!! After a short break we set off on our final piece of trekking, a mere 6km back to the road. The for mentioned pickup truck looked like a mirrage as we all felt our tight legs begin to give up the ghost a little! Had a bumpy hours drive to a resturant and had pail in comparison lunch, suppose Doh deserved a break from all the cooking! Our final stop was a beautiful waterfall which would of served better after the previous days trek but it was nice to swim beneath it, bloody cold though!! We drove about 2 hours back to Chaing Mai and the adventure was over, it was a very enjoyable and fulfilling 3 days! We spent the evening with the guys from the trek, drinking lots of chang and reminiscing about our 3 day adventure together! Our firm mattress hostel bed felt like a 5 star hotel after the cold hard bamboo floors of the nights before!

Tuesdsy 10th March

Chilli Club Cooking Academy! A full day of cooking, eating, cooking ,eating, cooking....you get the idea. We cooked 4 main dishes and one desert each and learnt to prepare decorative flowers from salad.
Once we picked our dishes (Phad Thai, Penang Curry, Tom Yum Goong, stir fried cicken with holy basil and chilli for Adam and Green Curry, Tom Kah Gai, Spicy Pork and Fried Morning Glory for Trish and Mango and Sticky Rice for desert) Visot our lovely but very excentric teacher took us to market to but our ingredients and teach us how to choose the best fruits etc and where to find them if we can't afford to go to market.
The food we cooked throughout the day was amazing!! Traditional Thai Cuisine, it was very full of flavour and different to the examples in Thai restaurants at home. The order ingredients are added and the length of time things are cooked for at each stage are absolutelt vital. Our course included a full cooking book with our recipies for the day so rest assured we will be cooking uo a storm when we get back!

Wed 11th March

Elephant Nature Park rescue centre and sanctuary. An absolutely wonderful day. We spent from morning through to early evening up close and personal with these majestic, friendly creatures. All the Elephants there have been rescued from some horrific tourist attraction or logging camp where they have been abused by there Mahoot. One elephant called Lilly was even addicted to amphetamines when she arrived at the park as her owner was force feeding them to her to get her to work 24 hours a day, another was blind after being stabbed in the eye by her owner for being "stubborn".
There are no laws in Thailand to protect Elephants as they are classed as livestock so when Lek (the parks creator) rescues and elephant she has to buy it from its owner often at a huge price!
The elephants here do not work or participate in any shows but are unable to roam in the wild as they are only used to captivity and wouldn't be able to survive. Each elephant has a Mahoot who treats him very well and they are fed fruit and vegetables by the basket load. In between feeding and bath times they do nothing but relax with each other. The only time the animals are chained is at night to stop them being poached or shot for wondering onto farm land and during feeding time, those elephants who are severely injured are chained seperately to the others for their own safety.
The park also goes on week long trips giving free medical treatment to elephants in villages or trekking camps where there are badly treated but their owners won't sell them to Lek.
A very privileged day!!!
Our evening was spent at the night bizarre.

Thurs 12th March

Spent all day updating the bloody blog so you better all be reading it!!!
Off for a Thai massage now and meeting with our friend Amiele tonight (who we met in kanchanaburi) to go on a hunt for a Chang tower for our last night in Chiang Mai.