28th January - Chiang Mai (2)

We woke up the next day, which was to be the day of the most walking, all feeling a bit stiff but the great breakfast they had cooked us really helped. We set off into really dense jungle in the morning, up and down hills that were essentially small mountains, and settled for lunch at a stream with a small hut deep within the jungle. Strangely, they has re-routed some water to create a rudimentary cold shower near the hut and so we all dived under to get out of the heat, that was now especially hot and sticky. It was so invigorating showering in deep in the jungle. The afternoon was walking around 4 hours again, sometimes not seeing life for an hour until we reached our camp for that night, on the edge of the river in which we would be bamboo rafting the next day. As we got their they were still constructing our rafts, literally just out of bamboo and vine, and we all looked at them a bit sheepishly. The river wasn't particularly fast flowing but it had it's share of big rocks and small rapids so these precarious looking rafts were supposed to maneuver through these to get us down the river! We were all in high spirits though and that night after more great local food we sat again by the fire (with more Chang beer!) and our guide taught us some traditional Thai tribal songs. One was about the local festival, Loi Krathong, and the other was about the Chang (elephant). We attempted to sing but even with the phonetic lyrics he had prepared, we must have sounded ridiculous as Doh and the other tribal people were falling about laughing! The accommodation was the same kind of place, wood floors, blankets and mosquito nets but again I slept surprisingly well.
The next day we woke up to see our bamboo rafts fully built and looking a lot safer, so we set out on our way down the river. I don't whether it was a compliment or not but I was given the job of the engine at the back, obviously because I looked the strongest! Haha. This just involved pushing of rocks and the river bed with a bamboo stick, much like a Gondola in Venice. It was fine to start but then we started hitting some small rapids, and some big rocks, and although the other guys only had to worry about not falling off, I had to worrying about trying to power through as well! The most fun part was when we encountered a fallen tree in the river that we couldn't cross, so all the guys in the party had to get out in the river up to our armpits and try and loosen this tree so we could break our way through. We reached the end point of our crossing and walked a small way to the car, having proudly navigated about 15 km on the river in a couple of hours. On the way back to Chiang Mai there was another surprise, a gigantic waterfall that Doh informed us we had to go under if we wanted to return to Chiang Mai! We plucked up the courage after a little while, although Pete jumped straight in, and it was again incredible to be showering under the most powerful natural shower I had ever seen! I definitely got the dirt I had accumulated from the trek off! I hadn't really looked into trekking much before I got to Chiang Mai but I would recommend anyone coming to this part of the world to do one, everything about it was great.
So back in Chiang Mai that night we tried to have a quite night, we were all quite tired from the trek and me, Pete and Matt had booked a cookery course the next day. As it was we found by climbing over a wall just up from our guest house, we came to what was essentially a car park full of bars playing live music. We found one with a metal band that were playing terrible British Indie covers, so after a few drinks it seemed like the best place ever. There were lots of Thai young people and although there were quite a few tourists (or Farang as we are called) we met loads of different people which was really interesting. We ended up staying until about 5am just talking to different groups of tourists and Thais.
The next morning we were up for 8 30am for the cookery course and for the first morning since Bangkok, I didn't feel too great! Luckily the cookery course was fun, we went to the market first after choosing our dishes for the ingredients. As it was so early, the 'Farang' hadn't got up yet so it was full of Thai people buying their ingredients for the day and it felt really authentic. The strangest thing was ordering some fish that was still alive in a bucket before being promptly battered on the head, de-finned, de-scaled and wrapped within about 30 seconds! All the dishes we cooked were so tasty and the chef was a real character, he sounded like a Thai Stephen Hawking.
That night was our second to last night in Chiang Mai and as we knew we had nothing to do the next day, we decided to go out again until late. The night didn't start as we intended as we were all so tired from the night before, we were all falling asleep in the first bar we went to. After we went back to the car park place though, we were feeling ready again. It was probably due to ordering some 'buckets' which are basically a bottle of whiskey, energy drink (which apparently aren't allowed in UK but we only found that after) and a little bit of Cola. The night becomes a bit of blur after that but we went to club called Spice where I'm pretty sure we all made fools of ourselves, but I'll choose not to remember that.
So today we are heading off to the Thai-Laos border to get the slowboat to Luang Prabang. It takes around two days and sounds relaxing, although we will be sitting on wooden seats, so we will see.