Thailand travel adventures with my cousin (part 1 of 2)
--Chiang Mai / Chiang Rai (northern Thailand)

In a long anticipated travel adventure, my cousin (John -- i.e. Johnnie in Asia) arrived on Friday February 23rd, my last day of classes at Sasin business school, and we set out on a tour of Thailand. We had wanted to travel together for a very long time, but circumstances had always prevented us from making this happen in the past ..but finally the time had arrived --John and I spent 13 days traveling in Bangkok, Chiang Mai in the north, and Krabi in the south. We had a truly fantastic time together, and I will try to capture the entertainment in the following posts.

After spending a few days in Bangkok, my cousin and I jumped on a night train, and headed up to the northern part of Thailand to visit the very popular tourist areas of Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai. This section captures the adventure. The trip was split up into 3 parts which I will capture in 3 separate posts:

1) 2 days of trekking through the mountains around Chiang Mai

2) 2 day van / boat trip up to Chiang Rai, home of the Golden Triangle, a famous historical point where northern Thailand, western Laos, and eastern Burma all join.
http://thailandforvisitors.com/north/chiangrai/chiangsaen/goldtriangl.html
3) golf at Chiang Mai Highlands, considered by some to be the nicest golf course in Asia.
http://www.chiangmaihighlands.com/

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PART 1 OF THE CHIANG MAI / CHIANG RAI TOUR -- trekking in Chiang Mai

locked and loaded in the train station


The train in Chiang Mai


As mentioned before, we took the night train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, which, next to flying, is the most popular tourist method for getting to the north. It was a ~12 hour train ride, with fairly cramped sleeping accomodations -- actually the efficiency of the narrow train space is quite impressive. There was also a supposed party / disco cab towards the front, but John and I became quite annoyed witht this after only a few minutes. For a rarity in Bangkok, we headed to bed first


We arrived in Chiang Mai at about 7am, and we were greeted by our tour guide. For our trip to Chiang Mai, I utilized my trusty travel agent in Bangkok -- Tony to book our entire experience through tour guides, as I knew he would give us the best deal, and it would best utilize our short time there.


We had ~1 hour to walk around Chiang Mai, before heading out on our trekking tour. The city is a pleasant change from Bangkok, and is quite beautiful. They pride themselves on having fresh flowers all over the city. The waterfalls, captured below, along a major road were also quite impressive.


At one point, Chiang Mai was once completely surrounded by a stone wall for protection. There are still remnants of this all around the city. A monument for the King, of which there literally thousands in Thailand, is on the left.



We stepped into a busy food market to grab some breakfast.

The meat on display through this vendor was not quite what we had in my mind, but it was worth a photo.

One of the ladies on our trek got a kick out of the head of a pig captured on display at a nearby market.

We spent about 2 hours in a very uncomfortable Thai van before arriving at our first village.

Johnnie, who seemed to be distracted by various farm animals for the majority of the trip, had his first encounter with one of the many stray dogs perusing the village. More on John's interest in farm animals in an exclusive "John's photos of Thailand" post...

The village we were in had many houses, similar to the following

We had a look in one house where they were enjoying a casual day. The little one at the front appeared to take a special interest in the passing farang ..or foreigners

One great story the guide shared with us--

Every year, a few men from the village race carts (shown below) down a mountain. The winner gets first choice of the women in the village -- not a bad prize! The cart below obviously needs a little maintenance before entering the next race

A good overview of the village, with an impressive mountian backdrop.

Our guide -- very nice and welcoming

Our group, in a very uncomfortable sitting arrangement in the van.

I was clearly not doing well sitting horizontally in the van

One of the village boys, who was hitcing a ride, was kind enough to move up top to give us a little more room. "Look Mom -- No Hands!"

We finally arrived at our dropping off point, and set off on a 2-day hike.

We saw many intelligently designed (i.e. built on stilts to protect from runoff) housing along the way.

There were also many farms with rice terraces, the main crop in the area.

..and another, even bigger one.

Along the way, we had to cross many, quite-unstable bridges. Johnny and I are holding on for dear life in this shot :)

One of our guides decided to have a little fun with one of farm animals along the way.

Notice the buffalos in the background of one of our hikers. They are clearly quite domesticated.

One of the ladies was performing some type of function with the rice as we entered our sleeping camp (I unfortunately forget what)

A view of our camping sight after the first day of trekking.

Our guide and some villagers cooked us a fantastic meal for dinner.

Johnnie (on the left), and the rest of the crew, patiently waited for some food after a tough day.

The dogs in the village were some of the best beggars I had ever seen. They put Britt (my old dog) to shame. They were patient ...and very cute!

...another view

We enjoyed a nice fire and conversation after the meal

For the second day of trekking, we had the opportunity to ride trained elephants for part of the trek. This is one of the most popular activities in Thailand.

This was one of the large ones

...and a close-up. They are incredibly kind and responsive to humans. We will visit the elephant training camp in a later visit.

We got intimately close before setting out on our journey.

We also fed them before heading out. This one was very fond of John's bananas. He could have easily thrown John into the river behind, and stolen all of the bananas at once, but luckily for the family, he was patient :)

I was intrigued at their eating habits -- their tongues are huge!

Finally, we boarded up and set out for about a 1 hour ride.

A view from up top along the way.

The last part of the trek was spent on a few Bamboo rafts. Though not pictured (as we did not want to take our cameras on the river), this was THE most entertaining part of the trek, especially after the guides started splashing guests on opposing rafts, yelling out -- "No Wet - No FUN!" Naturally, both John and I became fully engaged in the festivities.

Unlike usual Thai-style (i.e. they rarely warn you of hazards), they were kind enough to put up a sign warning us of the dangers of hiking.

For our second night in Northern Thailand, we headed out in Chiang Mai for the night. We headed out to the river for dinner. This captures the beautiful scene quite well.

..and a view from our restaurant

The next morning, we woke up early and set out for Chiang Rai, about two hours to the north. See PART 2 OF THE CHIANG MAI / CHIANG RAI TOUR for details