Sarah & Richard's Travels

We arrived in Chiang Mai in the midst of Loi Krathong festival with fireworks cracking and zipping past every few seconds, it was controlled bedlam!

The festival itself (info here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loy_Krathong) lasted for three days and we were lucky to arrive on the first night. People were everywhere letting off fireworks from the riverside, over the bridges, on the streets and everywhere so it was a bit crazy! There were loads of rice paper balloons floating across the sky which looked like little fairies as they danced away into the sky. They'd light the flame then hold it and let it heat up for awhile before letting it go into the sky. Some of the didn't make it very far though skitting across the street, setting trees alight or causing a shower of sparks when they hit the power lines!!! Some had a bit of rocket power with some sort of firework attached which made them look like shooting stars floating up to the sky.

The other thing to do was float a little flower boat thing down the river for a new beginning. I bought one and placed it in the water where it promptly rolled over and sank...not sure what that means?! I am happy to say though that my second one floated away quite nicely down stream...second time lucky!

We also spent a day at Thai Cook School which was awesome. We started off at the markets where they told us about all the different types of rice, fruit and vegetables etc and then we got down to business making everything from Thai curries to spring rolls to Richy's favourite Sweet and Sour Chicken which he has had almost every night for dinner since Vietnam! Thank goodness he's learnt how to cook it. We were given a recipe book so anyone in NZ or heading over that way can enjoy our yummy Thai cooking...not sure how we'll get some of those ingredients though...

We had to venture into the Starbucks a couple of times as Richy's favourite Toffee Nut Latte has finally come out. It's a bit wierd seeing all the Christmas stuff in starbucks as it totally doesn't feel like Christmas at all.

We've had three days trekking in the jungle near Chiang Mai which was pretty cool. Our first morning was spent bamboo rafting through the river which was very wet! The rafts were pretty much around 8 pieces of long bamboo tied together with an old tyre which were dismantled at the end of each journey. There were four of us on the thing plus 'driver' and one person Rich in our case had to be the driver at the back with a bamboo pole. With four of us on the thing we got very wet very quickly, the 'drivers' with their 'no wet, no fun' mantra also contributed to our saturation. It was a pretty cool ride downstream and at one waterfall the whole thing pretty much sank under the water and we all scrambled to stay on with Richy falling off the back. He managed to hang on though unlike the Spaniard who fell off and was left floating 100m behind!

We trekked that afternoon and all the next day in the jungle. It was really hot going up all the steep hills, but we had loads of breaks and got to swim in two different waterfalls which was awesome. Our first night we spent in little huts beside the waterfall. There was no electricity or anything and the hut just had one of the rooves made of jungle leaves and was pretty much all open. It was FREEZING and I couldn't wait for the sun to come up in the morning! The next night we stayed in a Karen village. The Karen people are small tribes which live in the hill areas of Thailand, Laos and Burma. The village was pretty small with only around 150 people and just as many chickens and boars running around! This village had a solar panel so had some electricity until it run out part way through the evening. Its a pretty simple way of life with everyone working in the rice fields all day whilst others tend the homes and villages.

That night we had a fire in the village with the Shaman coming along to sing us traditional songs. He was crazy (and a bit of an alcoholic) and would sing a bit them make some joke about something and laugh he head off. At one point he had us all looking like stupid tourist whilst showing us the 'Chang' dance. Chang is the Thai word for elephant and the dance basically involved all of us going around the fire pretending to have bigs ears and a long trunk and big lolloping steps. I hate to think what other people would have thought of us if they'd seen it!

Rich managed to help the guys by carrying around 10 25kg rice bags up hill from the paddies to the village as he was up early one morning! It was hard, heavy work but the locals lift tonnes and all the while are walking up the tough tracks in jandals (flip flops)!

On our last day we spent the morning walking and then had an Elephant ride in the afternoon. The ride was pretty cool though the jungle and across the river, but the poor elephants had chains on. They say that they work 4-6hour days and are let loose at night but I'm not sure whether I believe that or not, so I did feel like an exploitative (is that a word) tourist.

That night it was on a bus up to the Thai border town Chiang Kiek for the slow boat to Luang Prabang, Laos.