Merry Christmas

I feel as though my life has been in fast motion since I wrote last and truly it has been filled with some amazing adventures and funny stories which I will share with you. I really will be writing two blogs in one to get caught up and post some great pictures from the past 1 ½ weeks.

My friend Lana arrived the day after I finished my Thai massage class. The day she arrived we jetted around Chiang Mai getting organized to leave on a trek the following day. My dad had gone on this trek and highly recommended it so we signed up. It was such an amazing experience! I don’t even know where to start. The trek was south of Chiang Mai about 4 hours by car in an area called Sopmoei-Mai Sarlang area. There was nothing touristy about this trek. What it was about was experiencing a hill tribe village and what their every day lives consisted of. The three days consisted of hiking with packs/sleeping bags on through tropical forest, jungles, through the water along waterfalls and through a cave with bamboo lit to guide the way. The first night we stayed with the Poe village people in the headman’s home with his family. We had amazing food cooked for us and tasted some rice whiskey which wasn’t too bad…missing some good red wine here in Thailand 

We slept on bamboo mats outside the “deck” under mosquito nets and woke up to roosters at the crack of dawn-not that we got much sleep on the hard surface anyway! We set off to hike more on that day going through another village and a school where the children were playing a game called “sempattakrol” which was like soccer played over a lowered volleyball net. It was a lot of fun to watch and a couple of our trekking group joined in with the kids. Speaking of our group and crew; we had a great group of people; Thomas and Sarah from France, Juan, Imma, Jochen from Majorca, Spain and of course the Americans, Lana and myself. Our tour guide was Ropooh who was an amazing guide. The Poe people are his people so he not only speaks the language but knows all about the culture and also living in that environment. He was very knowledgeable about uses for various plants and fruits to help with things like a sore throat and bleeding. There was even a leave that you could blow bubbles with. We also saw some pretty scary spiders, tree mice but luckily no cobras. We also had Elvis(not his real name but he had it on his shirt so thus he become Elvis for the trek) as our driver and a few of the locals Poe villagers who carried most of our food, carved the bamboo, and cooked our meals. Not only that but they fished with nets, caught frogs, and they even caught a rat in the middle of the night that we guessed they ate at some point. Nothing is wasted.

On the second day we hiked back down to the river(we had had a steep hike up the previous day) and crossed the river a couple of times and hiked along the river until we arrived at our 4 star river front accommodation. It was like Gilligan’s island meets Robinson Crusoe. We unpacked, took a swim in the river and sunbathed on rocks(well I did at least) and hung out while our guide and locals made our eating utensils and cooking gear all out of bamboo. We ate this amazing Thai vegetarian meal consisting of three different dishes and cooked rice all done on the fire in bamboo. We were all so quiet while we devoured this delicious meal. For entertainment, Thomas who is a professional dancer, tried teaching us salsa on the bamboo floor….not too easy to maneuver but we had fun and laughed a lot.

Once again we slept on the bamboo floors and had to hike to the toilet(squatters) in the middle of the night. The next morning we had eggs cooked in bamboo, fresh fruit and toast. We packed up and started our hike for the day which consisted of many river crossings, along waterfalls and the finale a 20 minute hike up river through a cave. It was incredible. After some more hiking uphill we had a great Thai lunch all wrapped in bamboo leaves. After lunch we had a short hike and unfortunately our trip was coming to a close. We headed back to Chiang Mai and joined up with our group for one last meal together.

The next day, Lana and I had planned to do a cooking course at an organic farm about 30 minutes outside of Chiang Mai. Thomas and Sarah, from our trek, joined us and we had a great day of cooking and eating Thai food with a fun group of people.

On to Christmas! We had organized a guide and car to head up north to Chiang Rai, The Golden Triangle and over to a mountain town called Mae Salong. Our driver showed up with the gal from the office who booked our tour(who was actually his wife and we were informed she was coming along as well) Lana and I went along with the flow even through the car seemed a bit rough and as the day went on our driver manipulated most of the day so instead of going on a 4 hour boat trip along the Meekong river we only went for about 1 hour but did head up to Mae Salong for the night which ended up being a wonderful place. It is a Chinese hill village where they grow oolong tea and have wonderful views and lovely cool nights. That evening Yo (the driver) took us up the very steep hill to the temple to see the night view. Once back in town we stopped to get something at 7-11(yes, they are all over Thailand…no kidding) and the car wouldn’t start. We figured he’d get it fixed and we’d be off in the morning….or so we thought!

Christmas morning we got up early to climb the 718 stairs to the temple for a wonderful view. On the way we ran into Yo and he informed us that the car needed a part so he was on his way to Chiang Rai and would be back and ready to leave in about 3 hours. We figured Mae Salong wasn’t a bad place to be stuck so we hiked the temple, walked around the morning markets and the town enjoying the day. Yo finally got back and informed us he had to go back to get another part. By this time we were ready to leave and see the sights we had planned on so Yo had to hire another car/driver to take us to Mae Sai(border to Myanmar) the Golden Triangle where we took a speed boat over to Laos for a short shopping excursion. By this time, still no word from Yo who was supposed to meet up with us and we would continue to Chiang Rai and back to Chiang Mai. We started getting nervous and wondering if we’d ever get back that night. He did indeed fix the car and we met up with him to switch cars and head back. The clincher was that Yo ended up borrowing 2000 baht from us to pay the other driver.(We really did wonder if he'd really pay us back but he did)It was the longest drive! We had to stop often and he had to mess with the engine but FINALLY we got back to CM. Not really the Christmas we had planned but an interesting one to say the least.

The next night was the 26th and we got an overnight bus to Bangkok. I’ll stop here because my brain and hand need a break and post some photos from these adventures and will work on the next blog very soon.

I hope you all had a great Christmas!
View photos at:www.picasaweb.google.com/tonibodeau/ChiangMaitrek
www.picasaweb.google.com/tonibodeau/ChiangRaitour