During the
train travel there was one quite peculiar happening, our train was in fire. All
of a sudden the train staff ordered everyone to gather our staff and leave the
train. Immediately when we were outside of the train we saw the flames coming
from one of the wagons.
Anyway my
first full day, Saturday, in Chiang Mai went mostly wandering around the city
and looking what it has to offer. Also visited one temple but I already have
the feeling that when you have seen one you have seen all. Not that huge
differences really. And also made an action plan for the next full days I have
left. On Saturday evening I visited the Chiang Mai Saturday market with three
south-Korean students who are here to learn Thai language. These are really
messy markets. Tonns of stuff everywhere, even more people and when you want to
buy something the first price is never the last price. It was like a game and
after couple of shots I learned the rules. After the Saturday evening market we
also visited the Chiang Mai night Bazaar but at least I was a bit disappointed for
these.
Sunday I
decided to go to the Chiang Mai zoo. Again close to my hotel but it would have
been at least 40 min walk along highway or nice taxi with 50 cents again. I
took the taxi. Or the taxi is actually a wrong word to use, Songstherm is I
guess quite close how these are called. It is something more like a openback
minibus. You just waive your hand on the road and the vehicle stops, if the
driver is going to your direction then you jump in from the back which might
include already 12 other people (“comfortable” for only about 8 person) and
then you shout when you want to get out. If you want to go along with larger
streets and are ready to walk to the closest big street you have (like mine was
in around 2 min walk) you can travel all around Chiang Mai with really low prices.
However if you want your “taxi” to take you all the way in front of your hotel
or pick you up from there then you need to pay according to the meter fares
which can easily be three of four times higher instead of these “public” taxis
which have loosely some kind of travel plan also. The owner of my hotel wrote
my note with my details in Thai so I could just show it to driver and they
would let me out in front of this shopping mall which was next to my hotel.
So the day
in the zoo. I arrived to the zoo around 10 AM and left back to hotel around 6
PM. And honestly had only one actual break during the whole day of walking when
I had a quick lunch. This was a bit different than Helsinki zoo. Quick
calculation based on the map says I walked 18 km during the day. And I didn’t
even see everything! Anyway there were all the animals you can think and as we
know, we stay staring each animal quite a time, especially if it is a hippo or
rhino or panda etc. which are quite sights. Here are few pictures from my day.
After the
Zoo I was super excited and went shopping for 7/11 for some snacks and water
for the next two days because the next two days would the whole reason why I
wanted to come to Chiang Mai; Two Days Elephant Safari. And not only elephants
but bamboo rafting, orchid farm, visiting a tribe village, having a home stay
for the night at the village, trekking, swimming at waterfalls and of course
riding with the elephants.
Here are quite many pictures from the Safari:
I can only
say that the Safari exceeded all my expectations. The program was most likely
this. The first day there was a pick up from the hotels at 9 AM and I was
driven to the office of the travel company. There I met the others who will
join our safari and filled out the insurance forms (falling off from elephant
and hurting myself would not be covered, I ask ;) but my own travel insurance
would cover it, checked that also during previous evening). And at 10 AM there
were 2 pick-ups to drive us up to the mountins. First stop of the day was at
the butterfly and orchid farm. Didn’t see that much of butterflies but orchids
were stunning, so colourfulls, grands and vivid.
We spent one hour in the farm
wandering around and then it was time to move on. All in all our ride to
mountains took 1 hour from the orchid farm so almost 2 h from Chiang Mai in
total. At the mountains we had a lunch reserved ready. After the lunch it was
time to start the adventure which was trekking. First day was quite easy on
trekking, we had around 2 hour trekking to reach an elephant camp. The moment
we had so looked for, riding with elephants. Since there were 9 of us in the
group, our guide asked from me if I would like to ride in an elephant as a
mahout instead of riding it in the backbox. I was super excited about this and
of course answered yes. So I was learned with basic commands on elephant and
also how to use the elephant hook.
Mahout in training
Since there were also local Mahouts (=Elephant drivers) walking around
I wanted to try this out even though I knew there was no possibility to control
the elephant in anyway if it would have started to act otherwise than told.
Well, the truth came out quite fast, after first two meters, that I am
certainly no mahout. It was incredibly hard just to stay ON the elephant.
Nothing like riding a horse. The whole elephant was waving from one side to
another and I had my full concentration on just how not to fall down from 3
meters. Luckily the elephant didn’t do anything that it wasn’t supposed to,
expect staying eating every once in a while, so I didn’t need to try how to
jump off from it. The elephant ride last around 2 hours in the first day and
after I got out of the elephant both of my legs cramped after being so long in
difficult position. Basically we had to have a 20 min break before we could
continue our trip. Of course since I was the only one who was riding with an
elephant (I mean sitting on the elephant’s neck bouncing around and not in the
box placed on the top of the elephant) others had no problems to continue the
trekking. After the break my legs also started to feel like I could move
forward so off we went. Now it was only one hour trekking anymore left before
we arrived to the local tribe village.
I absolutely can’t remember the name of
the tribe even though I asked for it several times but since I didn’t have
anything to write it down there’s no way I could even pronounce it. Anyway the
tribe consisted originally refugees from Myanmar 200 years ago. Now the village
was still living it’s own life, altought they had a bit of electricity which
they got from the solar panels donated by the government one year earlier.
However at least I didn’t see anything that would use electricity in the whole
village. Maybe these items were hidden from the tourists ;) Anyway the village
consisted only about 7 actual houses and then couple of bamboo huts (in which
we of course stayed the night) while there were in total about 30 people living
(5 families). The villages cooked some food for us for the dinner but since
they couldn’t speak any of our languages they didn’t really speak with us that
much. The guide told us about their lives in the village and told that his
family came also from similar kind of village from the east Thailand and he had
gone to study with the stipends government provides for these tribes. The
dinner included true close-distance food since for example the tamarinds we ate
were collected from the three less than 10 meters from us and we could see where the bananas and other
fruits come. This was indeed enlightening visit from the modern world to see
there are actually still those who manage without even electricity.
Next
morning we got a nice fruit breakfast and then it was time to hit the road
again. Now we had around 3hours of trekking and then reaching the elephant
camp. This time I didn’t need to ride on the elephant but I could actually
enjoy from the box. I have to say I felt a bit like Doctor Livingstone while
wandering across the country. Again after two hours of riding we had our final
trekking part with only one hour route. The reached a waterfall in the jungle
and where we also had our lunch eaten (Cold chicken and rice + fruits). The
water of the waterfall was cold since it came from the mountain (not exactly
+30 degrees with I had get used already in Koh Tao diving) but it was really
refreshing and it was nice to wash off the dust and dirt from the last two
days. We spent nice couple of hours in the waterfall and I did some free
jumping after our guide from the cliffs (Have to say I said my prayers first
because didn’t feel totally safe).
After the waterfalls we had a bamboo rafting
for 3 hours along the river which was super relaxing. It was also so cute to
see baby elephants from elephant camp bathing in the river while we passed them
in one meter. After the river rafting everyone seemed quite tired and the trip
back to town in pick-ups was quite silent for all of us. Also after I reached
my hotel I fall asleep immediately, just got my eyes open to put on alarm since
I planned to continue my trip to Pai next early on following morning. All in
all the safari was extremely well organized, no additional waiting times
anywhere and everything ready for our arrival, so we could just concentrate to
enjoy the trip, which we did certainly.
All in all
Chiang Mai wasn’t itself as great as I had expected but the trekking and safari
were such adventures that I’ll give my full points on there and am happy I
visited the place. Next stop: Pai.
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