Hi there everyone, hope all is well wherever in the world you find yourself.
We are just about to say goodbye to Thailand after two weeks of tripping around and head to Laos.
We are much more used to travelling now and living out of each others pockets, and have mastered all the important thai customs. Such as; leaving a bit of rice on your plate. Using your fork like a knife, using your spoon like a fork, saying the basics of the thai language, and saying no thanks to the hundreds of offers a day for tuktuk's, massages, or ladyboys....
Chiang Mai has been amazing, we have really enjoyed everything that is on offer up here, and could easily spend another month, chilling and soaking up the city.
Hamish spent the first day trekking around the city and looking around the city, but I got quite sick from the lunch we had, (think it could of been the ice?) and spent the afternoon looking at the four walls of our guesthouse bathroom. Not fun. Was fine the next day though thank god, as we had our three day hill tribe treak. It was really incredable.
There were about ten of us in the group and we went far up into the chiang mai mountains and stayed with the Karen tribe. It was like an real life anthropology lesson, and learnt all about how the tribe functions, and the cutoms etc. We saw lots of crazy jungle incects and animals, and the spiders and snakes where MASSIVE. We also saw hundreds of rice fields and got to meet the villagers. Tres cool. We stayed in thatched bamboo shacks and was like stepping back in time by hundreds of years. We did lots of swimming, and was a bit of an experience on the last day to get to ride the elephants and go bamboo rafting. Our elephant was the granddaddy greedy one and stole the fruit from the other elephants. It was a real laugh, and man they are incrediable creatures. Bamboo rafting was a laugh as well, fell out a few times, and hamish thought it was amusing to contionusly wet me and everyone else in the group... hmmm... they are not exactly safe in Thailand, no waivers to sign or anything, they just throw you onto a raft and off you go down the rapids. classic.
Once back in Chiangmai, we meet up with our tour group for dinner and a night out, and was cool to find a few night spots out and about.
Hired bikes with another few travellers and crazily took off in the middle of the day (so hot like 40 degrees) to Bo sang. Its the 'umbrella' village were you get to check out where all the locals engage in almost any sort of thai handicraft, including making beautiful handmade umbrella's... we also checked out a silk factory, and couldn't believe that people still manually work the machines, not a computer or anything. we were thinking that the cost of labour is cheaper than running the power.. craziness.
Yesterday Hamish went EXTREAM and did a mountian biking mission up the hills above Chiang Mai. Not as good as the redwoods but still loads of Fun.
I spent the day learning how to cook thai food at a cooking school. was absolutly awesome, and have now mastered the art of cooking the thai classics. Was a hand's on course, and I was the only one with the instructor, which meant I got to chop and cook and eat everything myself. After I went and got a thai massage... Bliss!
It's cheap as chips over here, and Hamish is much bolder in trying new and exotic food from the side of the road. (my tummy heaves at the sight of some food). We are eating for about $1-2 a meal each (25-50baht) and trying lots of different flavours and loving it all.
Will post up again in a few weeks after Laos, lots of love guys, we are missing you all. xxxx
We are just about to say goodbye to Thailand after two weeks of tripping around and head to Laos.
We are much more used to travelling now and living out of each others pockets, and have mastered all the important thai customs. Such as; leaving a bit of rice on your plate. Using your fork like a knife, using your spoon like a fork, saying the basics of the thai language, and saying no thanks to the hundreds of offers a day for tuktuk's, massages, or ladyboys....
Chiang Mai has been amazing, we have really enjoyed everything that is on offer up here, and could easily spend another month, chilling and soaking up the city.
Hamish spent the first day trekking around the city and looking around the city, but I got quite sick from the lunch we had, (think it could of been the ice?) and spent the afternoon looking at the four walls of our guesthouse bathroom. Not fun. Was fine the next day though thank god, as we had our three day hill tribe treak. It was really incredable.
There were about ten of us in the group and we went far up into the chiang mai mountains and stayed with the Karen tribe. It was like an real life anthropology lesson, and learnt all about how the tribe functions, and the cutoms etc. We saw lots of crazy jungle incects and animals, and the spiders and snakes where MASSIVE. We also saw hundreds of rice fields and got to meet the villagers. Tres cool. We stayed in thatched bamboo shacks and was like stepping back in time by hundreds of years. We did lots of swimming, and was a bit of an experience on the last day to get to ride the elephants and go bamboo rafting. Our elephant was the granddaddy greedy one and stole the fruit from the other elephants. It was a real laugh, and man they are incrediable creatures. Bamboo rafting was a laugh as well, fell out a few times, and hamish thought it was amusing to contionusly wet me and everyone else in the group... hmmm... they are not exactly safe in Thailand, no waivers to sign or anything, they just throw you onto a raft and off you go down the rapids. classic.
Once back in Chiangmai, we meet up with our tour group for dinner and a night out, and was cool to find a few night spots out and about.
Hired bikes with another few travellers and crazily took off in the middle of the day (so hot like 40 degrees) to Bo sang. Its the 'umbrella' village were you get to check out where all the locals engage in almost any sort of thai handicraft, including making beautiful handmade umbrella's... we also checked out a silk factory, and couldn't believe that people still manually work the machines, not a computer or anything. we were thinking that the cost of labour is cheaper than running the power.. craziness.
Yesterday Hamish went EXTREAM and did a mountian biking mission up the hills above Chiang Mai. Not as good as the redwoods but still loads of Fun.
I spent the day learning how to cook thai food at a cooking school. was absolutly awesome, and have now mastered the art of cooking the thai classics. Was a hand's on course, and I was the only one with the instructor, which meant I got to chop and cook and eat everything myself. After I went and got a thai massage... Bliss!
It's cheap as chips over here, and Hamish is much bolder in trying new and exotic food from the side of the road. (my tummy heaves at the sight of some food). We are eating for about $1-2 a meal each (25-50baht) and trying lots of different flavours and loving it all.
Will post up again in a few weeks after Laos, lots of love guys, we are missing you all. xxxx
