28th January - Chiang Mai (1)

We arrived into Chiang Mai from the night bus at around 7.30 am and so were all pretty disorientated, although the bus was surprisingly comfortable so we all managed some sleep. Strangely too, I got chatting to the guy that came to sit next to me and it turned out he went to the same college as us all and came from Surrey too! His name was Andrew, or Sol as we call him, and he pretty much became our forth man from then on for everything in Chiang Mai. We found a guest house that the Lonely Planet ( or the Bible as we were calling it) had recommended and got two double rooms for about 1/4 of the price of the place in Bangkok, although it was probably about 1/2 as clean. It had a good reputation for Treks into the jungle though so we thought it was worth staying.
Our first day was just about getting settled in and we booked our trek for the next day as well as the slow boat trip into Laos for 6 days later. We then went to hire some bikes to explore the town properly. Chiang Mai is an amazing old town in the North of Thailand that started as an old city surrounded by walls and a moat. It has since built up around this old city pretty evenly, although the old city is still where most of the attractions and guest house are and this is where we were staying. It is infinitely smaller than Bangkok and as such we could ride round the whole of the old city in about 15 mins, dodging in and out of the traffic and looking at people going about their daily business.
It is an amazing city and feels a lot more like Asia than Bangkok, and after all the cycling and the bus journey, we were inspired to do something very Thai; get a (legitimate!) Thai Massage. It was quite surreal, we were all made to change into Thai garments and were laid on beds in the middle of a big room, all four of us together. They had to call in reinforcements as they weren't expecting all of us to come in at once, and so we all started getting our massages at stuttered times. Pete was the first and Matt the last, who, having been lying there for 30 mins already, had to be woken up to start. It was amazing to get a proper massage, although some bit really hurt like when she was walking on my back! We were all a bit scared when Pete had finished and they pulled a curtain across...but luckily it was just so he could get changed!
So we slept pretty well that night, which it turned out was really handy as we set off on our trek the next day. Even though it was called a 'Trek' I still don't think any of us expecting to be doing so much walking! We first were driven, with 5 others, around 2 hours to a place just outside the jungle were we rode elephants. It was strangely relaxing, except when the trunk came up like a giant snake to ask for more food! I didn't realise too that the 'sticks' in the bag were in fact sugar cane and I was depriving it of more food that I'm sure it could smell, but it didn't throw us off so I guess it didn't mind my stupidity too much. We got a lot of pictures of us all on the elephants, including Pete on his head, that I'll try to put up soon.
After lunch a few miles later, we drove again for around 3 hours into the National Park south west of Chiang Mai were we set off on our trek into the jungle were only the hill tribes live. We walked for around 3 hours through jungle and untended Paddy fields, harvesting is around September, until we reached our tribe that Doh, our guide, knew to stay the night with. They are of the Kar'en people, incidentally the only tribe not to grow opium, who live in wooden huts on stilts so that pigs, chickens etc. can run free underneath. It was an amazing night, sitting around a fire looking up at stars I had never had the chance to see before, and of course drinking Chang beer! The hut we stayed in was comfortable enough, we slept on bare wood in blankets but at least we had mosquito nets. It was the first time since being here that I have been really cold at night, the mountains and clear skies combined to make the nights get near to freezing, but I still managed to sleep a few solid hours.