Chiang Mai & Kanchanaburi

The journey to Chiang Mai came with a 4 hour stop over on the border town of Udon Thani, which wouldn't normally be a problem but as we walked through the town to find some food, we quickly realised that not many foreigners end up in this part of town as nothing was in English. How very ignorant of us to assume it would be! We decided to brave it and sat down in a 'restaurant' and while trying to make sense of the Thai menu, the owner approached us and simply said "chicken soup?" - we politely accepted and unfortunately it was not a great choice as it tasted like dish water and the chicken in it was very questionable. We left it, paid up and headed to 7-11 for a trusty cheese toastie - very cultured.

The rest of the journey was fairly straight forward, and after being taken to around a hundred absolute dives, we found Paradise. Unfortunately, Paradise it wasn't but it would have to do. We had so much planned for our time in Chiang Mai and not much time to do it in so we straight away booked on to a Thai cookery course for that evening at Galangal Cooking Studio. Our teachers were Aoy and Max and they were brilliant and so funny. With them, we learnt to make five dishes but first took a trip to the market to buy the ingredients. 

Aoy took us around showing us all the ingredients, telling us what we could use in England for alternatived and it seemed like she was some kind of local celebrity at the market as all the owners were laughing at her trying to put her off - either that or they were laughing at us, something we have grown accustom to. We headed back and started with making a chicken in coconut milk soup, then a pad thai, spring rolls and then the green curry paste to finally make the green curry. The food was so good (even if we do say so ourselves) and we got to eat everything we made! Not that any of us managed to eat it all but at least we know now what it should taste like. I feel like most people that own a restaurant in Asia should go to this place as some of the food we have has is really not great! How can you muck up a chicken fried rice?! Is a question we have had to ask too many times on this trip already.

Both the teachers made us all feel really at home and had a laugh with everyone so it made everyone relax although it was quite funny that Aoy was rushing off after the class to eat in the French restaurant around the corner. Maybe the grass is always greener? 

There are a lot of different cooking classes but we definitely chose the right one and we have already recommended them to others.

The next day we were up early to go to Mahout training. A Mahout is the traditional word for someone who looks after, trains and rides elephants. Of course, we had heard many horror stories about the different places you could go, and I myself have seen a horrible 'elephant camp' where they were all wearing hard seats and were lined up ready for tourists to ride so we really took our time to research where was best. We had found that they best one to go to was Baanchang Elephant Park but unfortunately they were fully booked for days (the reviews must have been right) so we booked on to Yogi Mahout Training which we hoped would be just as good. We set off first to our training centre where we were all given excercise balls to pretend were our elephants. 

Really realistic, right?! Here, they taught us the commands of go and stop, and how to make the elephant turn. Of course I had forgotten the commands as soon as we got back in the van so that was a great start. We headed to a fruit market to buy our elephants some bananas and headed to the camp where we were given our traditional Mahout outfits. The actual Mahouts were dressed in normal clothes, jeans and t-shirts so I'm not quite sure how we ended up looking like this:

Anyway, in our new get up, we set off to meet the elephants. We spent time feeding them and learning their names and ages before it was time to get up on them. Now, I knew that they would be big, but the enormity of them doesn't hit you until you're stood next to one thinking 'how the hell am I going to get up there?!'. As I was stood thinking about this very question, one of the elephants decided to whip its ear back and hit me right in the eye. The girls heard a very loud slapping sound and were met by me holding my streaming eye - ouch! After struggling to get on the elephant the way everyone else was - i'll blame that on being short.... mine had to crouch down so I could climb on to its neck which is the place most comfortable. We rode around a short loop to practice our commands, luckily a real Mahout walked around with you to direct the elephant as I had still forgotten them, dispite being told them again! Riding on these huge animals was unbelievably scary, everytime it moved I felt like I was about to be catapulted off of the front. 

As you can see by my face here, I couldn't hide my panic - and i'd even managed to pick the smallest elephant! 

Just to kill some time I assume, we learnt how to make a papaya salad each and then headed for our actual lunch. After this, we had the chance to ride the elephants around the jungle and take them for a swim and wash in the river. This time I sat on the back of the elephant while Leanne sat at the front and even though I felt a bit more secure it was so painful!! You could feel every movement and my legs hurt for days afterwards. We had a mother and its baby so everytime the baby started to go off of the path, the mum would start to run after it, so we were constantly holding on for our lives pleading for the baby to stay with us!

The best part of the day was getting in the river with them and giving them a good wash as they looked so content. Even though this place was so much better than some of them we had seen, you do feel bad for them although it seems we, and many other people do not have enough moral highground to leave and riding an elephant is too hard to say no to. 

The next day, we decided to keep up our animal theme and head to the Tiger Kingdom where we chose to see some baby tigers. These are between two and four months old and were so cute. We decided to pass on seeing the larger tigers as they are HUGE and pretty scary. If one of them went for you, then you would definitely loose at least a limb.

Other than that, I really enjoyed Chiang Mai in general. It is a really pretty place and has a lot to do. We decided to sack off going on another trek as previously planned because we were all shattered so this was the perfect time to throw away our walking boots which were taking up valuable souvenir space in our bags! We headed to a few markets and the night bazaar which is unlike anything i've ever seen. It was the largest market we've seen with lights and music and the sellers have actually learnt that if they sell something different to the stalls next to them then they are more likely to make a sale - who would have thought?! 

Our next stop on the journey down south was Kanchanaburi, home to the bridge over the River Kwai. We settled in to another strip of bars in a little hut settled on the river and went to explore. We got a Tuk Tuk in to the town anddidn't find much there apart from a few everything shops so we headed back and decided that of course we needed to sample the night life so headed out for a 'few beers' in a bar and to play pool. We quickly found a couple of friends to carry the night on with and our few beers ended up with getting drunk for 10 Baht (20p) and swinging back a forth on a wrecking ball to the sound of Miley Cyrus.

The next day we headed to the JEATH War Museum which told a little about the bridge over the River Kwai and the death railway, named this due to the amount of people killed whilst building it and then walked down to watch the train cross. I was a little disappointed as for some reason I was expecting a steam train but it was still pretty cool to see and also to walk along the bridge. We wanted to ride the train, but when the conductor told us the first stop was two hours away, we thought better of it and headed back ready for our bus to Bangkok ready for our south islands tour.

 

Hi Laos, bye Laos

We have spent the last two months absolutely dreading the 31 hour bus journey from Hanoi to Vang Vieng in Laos and have brought it up on every bus journey - "Laos will be 3/4/5/6 times as long as this so quit moaning". As the day of the journey was getting closer, we met a lovely girl in our dorm who had just done the journey the opposite way. After hearing her awful account and her saying that if she had the choice to pay £100 for a flight or do it again, she would pay..... we bought a flight! One short hour in the air and we had landed in Vientiane, the capital. 

As we didn't have much time, we were straight in to a four hour taxi which took us to Vang Vieng, known for the infamous activity of tubing. We arrived on the Vang Vieng 'strip' at about 8pm, with nowhere to stay. We keep meaning to book accommodation before arriving in our next location as it is such a pain in the arse but of course, we never do. The strip seemed lively with a chilled vibe as a lot of the bars were playing friends and had beds for seats - I already liked it. We were quickly approached by a promo girl with glitter all over her face who pointed to her bar "come and join us, we are the best place in the town to buy drugs - weed, opium, whatever you want". Welcome to Laos!

We finally found somewhere to stay and the next day decided to rent some bicycles (still not ready to get back on a moped) and headed off in search of the Blue Lagoon, which is meant to be a beautiful attraction. We followed the map and cycled the 7km, which doesn't sound too bad but the roads were so muddy and bumpy and at some points we had to get off the bikes and walk them barefoot through the deep mud / cow poo infested water. We finally came across the sign for 'Blue Lagoon' so we locked up our bikes and walked the 1km to where there were some locals ready to take your 10,000 kip entrance fee. We were expecting this so didn't really think anything of it and paid. We walked the remainder of the way down and found a muddy river that looked nothing like the pictures and wasn't even a pool of water. After walking a little futher, we realised that we had definitely been mugged off and decided to head back to the locals. Lisa was the most unimpressed and walked ahead to ask for our money back. 10,000 kip is just under £1 - but thats not the point. The oldest local was quick to run off in to the bushes and leave the three children who were laughing at us. They realised that it was risky to leave the money they were betting with in the middle of their table so one got up and ran off with it. In what can only be described as 'not her finest hour', Lisa (in a rage) threw a slingshot at the kids who were still waiting and went on to shove their moped over on to the floor. We quickly got back to our bikes worrying that some of the Laos mafia were going to come and kill us and kept cycling until we found the real Blue Lagoon:

Well, it was the authentic one and we recognised it from the pictures (like this one above from google) but it was a really horrible shade of BROWN. I'm not sure if it was because of the weather or if the online pictures are horrendously photoshopped but either way, after the drama of the day, we were very annoyed. We didn't even bother going in, grabbed a drink and then paid a tuk tuk driver to take us, and our bikes home.

The next day we decided it was time for tubing! We had a 'big tubing breakfast' which involved a beer and a free shot of vodka - a great way to start an all day drinking session. We set off in search of a tube and had to sign another waiver. We keep doing activities where you have to sign to say you wont die, and if you do you die, then you wont sue them. I usually just sign them straight away but this one worried me more than most. You had to tick 'yes' to being a confident swimmer, and I am definitely not - even sober. But, needless to say, I still ticked yes and hoped to god I wouldn't drunkenly drown (thankfully, i'm still here to tell the tale). We got in a tuk tuk who took us and our tubes up to the start point and met two friends from Israel who we ended up spending the whole day with. You get dropped at the first bar which was pretty busy already. They were playing some great music, had lots of games set up and just generally had a good vibe. So good that we ended up staying for two hours - playing (and winning) beer pong, drinking, and one of us vomming. We did a birthday shotgun for the bar man and decided it was time to get in the water... what was I saying about drowning?! 

As we were floating down the river, we started to hear some faint music and as we got closer we heard  some S Club 7 blasting out from the next bar. Then, the workers throw in ropes for you to grab on toand  then pull you on to the river bank and up to the next bar. This one was just as full, the had basket ball, played cheesy music and gave you a free bracelet with every drink. As a backpacker, anything free makes you very happy! We stayed for a while but as we had to get our rings back by 6pm, we left for the river again. 

It takes about an hour, with no stops, to get from the start to the finish in the wet season so the last part of our trip took a good half hour. There were a few more smaller bars along the last half an hour but because the current is so fast and strong, it is near on impossible to swim your ring to the river bank without falling out. Its common knowledge that many of the bars have been closed down as there have been many deaths over the years, but I do still think it is worth a visit just for the first two! As we approached the end, there was a man ready to help you out of the river and on to dry land. Of course, its me, nothing ever goes very smoothly so I managed to loose my ring and watched it float down the river. I shouted to some of the guys we'd met earlier to try and grab it as they were getting off at the next point but I was fully prepared to have lost it and have to pay the fine and too drunk to really care.

We made our way back to the start to give everyone else's rings back in probably the worst storm we have seen yet. Luckily, we were already soaked in river water but it was unlike any rain i've ever seen! Somehow, my ring came back with the others and we set off back to our hostel in a very very drunk state. We dryed off and only ventured back out for some very traditional pie and mash in an irish bar - perfect for warming us up. That night, we were too drunk to do anything else, ended up in bed by 9 and were up at 6am for our 24 hour journey to Chiang Mai - wow. 

We had such a little amount of time in Laos, which was such a shame as even the small parts we did see (minus the brown lagoon) were beautiful so I would definitely come back to see more!