C'est combien?

Break Time

Well Doug finished his last exam at 4pm last Wednesday and our flight left at 6pm to begin our holiday in Northern Thailand. We arrived in Chiang Mai around 10pm and had a great dinner at our hotel before getting a good nights sleep so that we could be well rested for our trekking tour.

Trekking Day 1
Our guide met us at our Hotel on Thursday morning and we jumped in the back of a pickup truck with our packs to do the 4 hour drive up into the mountains to start, stopping at a local market for food and stopping at a Buddhist Temple that was built right in a huge cave system in the mountain. Our trek for the first day was not very long, about 2 hours, and took us into a Lisu village where we spent the night in the house of a village family. The house was about 20' x 20' with dirt floors and very thin bamboo walls. We did not get much sleep that night with babies crying, people snoring, roosters crowing and the funniest - the pig snoring.

This day had us sweating, even more then walking around in Singapore! We hiked for about 6 hours up and over mountain ridges, through rivers, across rice terraces and in jungled valleys. Lunch was a welcome stop with a quick swim in the river to cool down. After the hike we continued our trip to the next village by elephant; down jungle trails that didn't look like an elephant would fit and through the river. When we got to the village we were tired and ready for food and a good night sleep. Since this village was bigger and more visited we stayed the night in a tourist hut and actually got a good nights sleep.

Trekking Day 3
Actually no trekking at all... This day was leaving the hill village to our waiting pickup truck by bamboo raft. The raft was a blast. It took us down the river, over small rapids and didn't look like it should stay upright at all. But it got us safely back and we were back in Chiang Mai in time to relax before dinner and going to the famous night market.



Sunday was our last little bit of time in Chiang Mai before flying back to reality. So we finished off the trip with a painful Thai massage before going to the airport.

posted by Doug and Sarah @ 11:44 PM