around the world in 180 days

As I mentioned previously, we planned on taking a trek in the jungle to spend a night in a hill tribe village while in Chaing Mai. We’ve just returned from the trek and I can say that it was not what I expected, and that’s not a bad thing.

I was ready for a trip that was more like a tour–something designed for everyone, with nothing too difficult and no long walking periods. Everything we’d read reinforced this assumption, and so we didn’t really think our trek would be much of a trek. We did think it sounded like a damn fine time, though, with elephant rides and whitewater rafting along with our village stay.

So yesterday morning, we climbed in the back of a pickup truck, collected two more people and drove off to visit the “long-necks” a tribe of the Karen people (I think) from Burma who, in a spurt of entrepreneurialism, have set up a “village” that is really more of a tourist attraction. The “villagers” sit around, weaving, waiting for tourists, and then pose for authentic photos and try to sell them handicrafts. They charge like $12 a head, so even if you don’t buy anything, they’re doing well for themselves. It seems like a decent way to support the village, and if it helps to preserve their traditional ways of life, then I’m all for it. It was just a bit strange to walk around in. It felt like a museum with living exhibits.

After the long necks, we met up with the rest of our group (who hadn’t paid to go to the living museum) and drove to an elephant camp. We ate lunch and set off into the jungle on foot. After about 30 mins, we stopped at a wooden stand in the woods and waited for the elephants. They came ambling down the path about 5 mins. later, gigantic and almost unreal. We climbed into a box on their backs and bounced and jostled our way through the jungle again, this time as passengers.

It was an incredible ride. Elephants are enormous, and you’re keenly aware of this when you’re atop one. They did all kinds of normal elephant things, like spray water with their trunks, eat leaves with their trunk and make that funny elephant sound (with their trunk), but it was all very very cool.

After the elephant ride, we continued to climb an enormous hill for about 2 hours, until we came out of the jungle an into a field of corn planted by farmers from the village we were staying at. The views were excellent. We could see another village across a river valley and Chaing Mai, way off in the distance (I think that’s what it was, anyway).

In the evening, we ate dinner and sat around talking. Our tour guide, Willow, was a Thai man from a small village not far from the elephant camp. He was constantly making jokes and laughing, and he was fun to be around and talk to. We stayed up later than we probably should have listening to him talk and crack jokes.

Today, we started by climbing down the enormous hill we climbed yesterday, ending at a waterfall, where we rinsed off the sweat from hiking in the river. We followed the river for another hour and then went rafting for about 1 hr, which was just about right. I was just starting to get tired and sore when we stopped. It’s almost like they do that for a living. . .

The rafting was great, but I kept comparing it to our canoe trip in NZ, and it wasn’t quite as thrilling because (1) we weren’t in control of the boat and (2) it didn’t matter if we hit any rocks, because our boat was made of rubber. In the canoe, it was nerve-wracking, because if you ended up sideways, you went for a swim, and if you hit a rock, you wrecked your boat. It was still a lot of fun. Our driver was great. He had us going through rapids backwards and sideways, he told us to jump out at a slow point and float in the current and was crashing into and splashing the other boats. He was hilarious.

And now we’re back in Chaing Mai, at the night bazaar, where we seem to end up every night. This is our last shot at cheap souvenirs, so we feel like we’d better take advantage of it. The trouble is, like most markets, most of what they sell here is crap. Oh well. It’s fun to walk around and look at all the people and sometimes it’s fun to see how angry a vendor will get if you don’t offer a reasonable price.

On an unrelated note, Anna and I would like to congratulate Josh and Jenny Ross on the birth of their second child together. Good luck with the new baby, guys!!

We took lessons today at the best Thai cookery school. It said so on our aprons. We were picked up from our hotel this morning around 9:30 and rode in the back of a pickup truck to a nearby fruit and vegetable market. Our guide, driver, teacher and the owner of the school showed us around, pointing out different vegetables we’d be using later in the day and giving us a little info about them. He also showed us the different kinds of rice (there were 20 in the market we visited) and kinds of noodles. It was interesting, but it seemed like it was cooking class hour at the market, as almost everyone there was foreign, in a group and being led around. I’m sure the locals know how to avoid the tour groups.

After the market, we rode in the back of the pickup again to the owner’s home, in what amounted to suburban Chaing Mai. This is where the magic began; the magic being the school transforming me, who has been known to eat nothing so as to avoid cooking, into someone who enjoyed cooking. The secret is taking all of the crappy parts out of cooking, like prep work, clean-up and the like, and just leaving the fun stuff, like playing with fire. Between the two of us, Anna and I made 11 different dishes, including green curry chicken, pad thai noodles and tom yam soup. The best dish we made was cashew chicken, which was the best cashew chicken I’ve ever had. Of course, we really just mixed the ingredients we were given in the proper order and the prep cooks did the rest, but we got a feel for it.

It was great fun. At one point, when we were making stir-fried dishes, we got to choose between plain cooking and adventure cooking, which meant choosing between having a huge fireball erupt from our wok or not. It was an easy decision for me and the fireball was particularly satisfying, as it added to the flavor of the food. We ate everything we cooked and it was too much food, but it was delicious.

I think we’re going to do an overnight, organized trek to hill-tribe villages. They’re kind of one of the big things to do in Chaing Mai, like the cooking courses and the night market, but they sound like a lot of fun. Trekking is sort of an exaggeration with these; you do about 5 or 6 hours total between the two days, but they keep you busy with elephant rides, whitewater rafting, visiting markets and I can’t even remember what else. The trips go for about $50 a head, but for two days and including food and lodging, that ain’t bad.

We’re spoiled with these cheap Asian prices. Thailand seemed expensive after Nepal and we’re flying to Germany in less than a week. Thailand is dirt cheap compared to Europe. We’ve worked out the numbers though, and especially with the cheap flights home, we’ll be fine. It’ll just take a bit of adjustment.

I’m looking forward to Europe, though, very much. I’ve never been there and there’s a lot of history to see and experience. It’ll be another huge transition, though, but with luck, we’ll be able to drink the water from the faucets and worry less about these damn stomach bugs. The bacteria should be more familiar, I would think. We’re flying to Munich on Monday, and are planning on staying east of Germany, visiting Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Krakow, Warsaw and the like. We’ll be back in the western world, but we’ll be as far east as you can possibly be. I’m hoping to tour a ex-Soviet prison.

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