I'd heard a bit about Chaing Mai from people at home, telling me about elephants and treks and stuff. They proved to be right. Chiang Mai was an odd little place in itself, but the things we did there will stay with me for some time. Had a right touch at the train station, getting a free ride to check out a hostel in town. This was a world away from our dorm in Bangkok. It had a double bed, a single, TV, pool, its own bathroom and was BRILLIANT for the equivalent of 4 pounds each a night.
Because of the night train arriving at 7 ish in the morning we had the whole day to play with. After chilling out, having some food and having a chat with a geezer that worked there we booked ourselves on a 4 hour cooking course later that evening. I love food a frightening amount and Thai food is the nuts, so I was well up for giving this a go.
The whole experience was pretty wicked. From the tour of the market, picking up the ingredients to getting a free recipe book at the end. On our course was me Tom and Rob and 2 dutch sisters. (I know what you are thinking) They turned out to be nice girls, very good at speaking English which embarrasses me a bit as I'm shite at any other language. I predictably made a mess of the presentation of a few things but I consider myself more naked chef than michelin star anyway! We made Spring rolls filled with chicken, loads of veg etc, steamed red snapper curry in banana leaf parcels, green chicken curry and seep fried bananas. All the dishes tasted well good but a combined team effort of Rik Waller, Michelle Mcmanus and Frank Lampard would have struggled to polish it off.
Day 2 in Chiang Mai= a trek we had booked through our hostel. This included a visit to a buterfly farm/orchid place, an elephant ride, white water rafting, bamboo rafting and some other shizzle. The butterfly place was lame. There was about 4 there and they were just boring colours, the only things worth noting here was that I got lost trying to find a toilet, (A common occurrence in England as you all know) aaaaand Rob and Tom took some rather odd pics whilst I was gone.
Now it was time to get our elephant ride on. This was something Rob had done but me and Tom hadn't so we were quite excited about exactly what it felt like. Well I can tell you that if you are a man and you sit just behind the head of an elephant for 1 hour when you get off it feels like your most sacred body part is no longer where it was. I was in all sorts of pain for a couple of minutes then it wore off. Whilst this experience was really fun, walking through water, paddy fields, up steps and watching the elephant breaking and eating stuff, often followed by a baby, it was slightly ruined when the Thai elephant trainer hit it very hard when it started to veer proper off course. None of us wanted to see this and the bloke that did it went right into our bad books.
After the elephant ride we had a trek scheduled. We all thought this would be a gentle walk around until we found a waterfall. We were again very wrong. Our little Thai tour guide was more athletic than Roger Black in his prime and shot off up steep hills, through jungle and over makeshift bridges. Was proper fun though and I held a stick the whole way through to make me feel like a real man haha. The only let down was the waterfall didn't have much water in so we weren't able to have a swim in it. This disappointed me on two levels: Firstly, I was absolutely boiling hot and wanted to cool off. And secondly, because I wanted to recreate Peter Andre's mysterious girl video. It wasn't to be though and so I trudged off with my big stick.
The final part of the day involved the bit I was most looking forward to: White Water Rafting. In our boat was: the captain, a very funny/angry Thai man who was obsessed with pretending there were snakes in the water, myself, Tom, Rob, a spanish chap called Albert and his girlfriend. First thing to comment on is that the Spanish are not very good on water. Albert fell in a couple of times and spent the rest of the time scared that a snake was in the water. We got involved with some very cold and intense water fights with a boat full of aussies (and one kiwi). These ended in a draw but we kicked their asses in terms of rowing ability. It was like Pinsent, Redgrave and Cracknell at Atlanta 1996. We absolutely glided through the water. Then we hit the rapids...
The day was finished off with some bamboo rafting, which involved our captain trying to capsize the boat and us trying not to go arse over tit. Quality day, now off to Pai.
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