Chang Mai
I was warned ahead of time that Chang Mai would be my favorite spot, but I still didn't schedule enough time there. I guess I don't mind the excuse to go back! This is a city in North Western Thailand that is surrounded by wilderness. People go to see the mountain tribes, participate in adventure sports, and hike the territory. We scheduled one full day of adventuring and managed to visit on orchid farm, ride an elephant, trek through the jungle to visit a waterfall, see an indigenous tribe, and go white water rafting. We really lucked out with this particular trip because usually there are upwards of ten people with you, but we were a happy group of four, and believe it or not, the two other guys on the trip were also visiting from Seoul! How crazy is that?
I am easily distracted by pretty things, so starting the trip at the orchid farm was dangerous. I promptly lost the group as I wandered through the rows of orchids, taking pictures and smiling to myself. They were massive, and gorgeous, and truly interesting in the way they grow. I loved them.
After the orchids, we went to visit the Karen. This is a "long neck" tribe that resettled in Northern Thailand from Burma. Apparently most of the indigenous people still living in that area of the country came over from Burma....so we weren't seeing an ancient Thai way of life, but an import I guess. That's okay, most of S.E. Asia spent so much time invading each other in early history that the cultures are pretty mixed anyway. Also, the village we visited was only a "show" village where the tribes people can come and stay to make some money off the tourist trade. The actual villages are too far out to reach on a single day's trek. It was still educational...and sort of heartbreaking. "Long neck" is so called because they use continually growing copper coils to stretch their necks out. Only the women do this as it is considered a part of beauty, but the adult sized copper coils weigh over 10lbs...I can't imagine carrying that on my shoulders all day. It was hard to see the little girls in them too...they all had handkerchiefs under their coils to help with the chafing, and of course the neck deformities can also be health hazards....
Next we headed to an elephant camp for a ride through the jungle. We were told that Asian elephants are smaller than African elephants, but they were plenty big to me. They are also apparently nicer. We named our elephant Baxter, and we soon found out that he only works for bananas. We fed him about a bushel of the darn things, and everytime we stopped feeding him, he stopped walking. Well trained.
After the elephants we had lunch in a little hut in the middle of the jungle where apparently you can stay the night for 20B! That's less than a dollar folks, and they had cold cokes and beers. :) They also let us hone our slingshot skills here before we trekked on to the waterfall. This trek would definitely not have been sanctioned by any American tour company...I'm pretty adventurous, but I was still convinced at least twice that I was going to fall and break myself.
Finally we went white water rafting and got completely soaked. The day was good fun, and actually the whole group enjoyed it so much that we decided to all get dinner together! We went home and cleaned up, and then our tour guide took us to a good local restaurant and ordered all the yummy Thai dishes we had never heard of. It was fabulous.
I am easily distracted by pretty things, so starting the trip at the orchid farm was dangerous. I promptly lost the group as I wandered through the rows of orchids, taking pictures and smiling to myself. They were massive, and gorgeous, and truly interesting in the way they grow. I loved them.
After the orchids, we went to visit the Karen. This is a "long neck" tribe that resettled in Northern Thailand from Burma. Apparently most of the indigenous people still living in that area of the country came over from Burma....so we weren't seeing an ancient Thai way of life, but an import I guess. That's okay, most of S.E. Asia spent so much time invading each other in early history that the cultures are pretty mixed anyway. Also, the village we visited was only a "show" village where the tribes people can come and stay to make some money off the tourist trade. The actual villages are too far out to reach on a single day's trek. It was still educational...and sort of heartbreaking. "Long neck" is so called because they use continually growing copper coils to stretch their necks out. Only the women do this as it is considered a part of beauty, but the adult sized copper coils weigh over 10lbs...I can't imagine carrying that on my shoulders all day. It was hard to see the little girls in them too...they all had handkerchiefs under their coils to help with the chafing, and of course the neck deformities can also be health hazards....
Next we headed to an elephant camp for a ride through the jungle. We were told that Asian elephants are smaller than African elephants, but they were plenty big to me. They are also apparently nicer. We named our elephant Baxter, and we soon found out that he only works for bananas. We fed him about a bushel of the darn things, and everytime we stopped feeding him, he stopped walking. Well trained.
After the elephants we had lunch in a little hut in the middle of the jungle where apparently you can stay the night for 20B! That's less than a dollar folks, and they had cold cokes and beers. :) They also let us hone our slingshot skills here before we trekked on to the waterfall. This trek would definitely not have been sanctioned by any American tour company...I'm pretty adventurous, but I was still convinced at least twice that I was going to fall and break myself.
Finally we went white water rafting and got completely soaked. The day was good fun, and actually the whole group enjoyed it so much that we decided to all get dinner together! We went home and cleaned up, and then our tour guide took us to a good local restaurant and ordered all the yummy Thai dishes we had never heard of. It was fabulous.
posted by Claire | 5:16 PM
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