Wednesday Night: After arriving in Bangkok around 23:00 and finding my pre-arranged taxi driver, I negotiated for a special tour of Bangkok with the driver. With the driver seeing a white male my age, he automatically assumes that I would like a girl, so I spent several minutes trying to communicate that I wasn’t actually interested in a prostitute but rather an actual tour of Bangkok. The driver seemed shocked but obliged for an extra 500 Baht (about an extra $13 American Dollars). He toured me around a couple markets and different sights of Bangkok, but unfortunately with the darkness I was not able to experience the city as much as hoped for. Arriving at my hotel around 1 in the morning, I was surprised to be informed that my room had been upgraded to a suit. Now you may remember my first day in HK, I was upgraded to a suit. So, I am officially 2/2 with upgrades in hotels by myself in Asia.
Thursday: Waking up on 5 hours of sleep, I was ready for the adventure to begin. My flight was scheduled to leave at 8:30 on the popular airlines 1-2 G0 (sarcasm). Arriving at the airport, I was anticipating a prop plane with the engine about to fall out, but surprisingly it was a normal airplane from the 90’s, with about 5 inches of legroom. So with my knees in near my face, the plane departed for Chiang Mai for one of the most exciting weekends of my life.
Our hostel was in a quaint setting in the middle of Chiang Mai. Unfortunately, the hostel was equipped with Internet, so I was able to watch the slaughter of the St. Louis Cardinals in the playoffs. So with this disturbing situation of the Cardinals chocking in October, but still having the ability to have an amazing weekend speaks volumes for Chiang Mai.
The group I traveled with in Thailand consisted of 11 people in total. Six attended another university in Hong Kong, with three that go to UPenn, one goes to UCSB, and the other two go to some school in Canada. The rest of the group consisted of Abe and Lili (from IU) and a girl from Canada (she goes to CityU) and her boyfriend. One of the girls contacted a travel agent in Chiang Mai to help plan out our weekend. Needless to say, the agent did an amazing job. So if anyone is ever interested in going to Chiang, please let me know and I will give you her information.
The first activity on the agenda for Chiang Mai consisted of being in direct contact with one of the most feared animals in the world. That’s right, for just $10 American dollars, I was able to lay with a 500 pound lion. This was an experience of a lifetime, which I could not pass up. The pictures will speak for themselves. It was amazing to be touching such a powerful animal. As Abe and I entered the cage, the trainer jokingly said “good luck”, but once we sat with the animals they seemed to have a combination of being very drugged and full of food (you know that feeling after thanksgiving dinner) that an attack would be very unlikely. I doubt PETA would be very happy with the condition of the animals but it was still very impressive being next to such a “feared” animal. The preserve also had baby tiger cubs which were much more active.
Sassy’s (our tour guide) next item on the agenda was attending a one-day culinary school for traditional Thai food. I don’t want to burst your bubble, but I was certified with an actual certificate, but don’t expect me to bring any excellence of Thai cuisine to come back to the States. We were instructed on how to make a 5-course Thai meal, which consisted of a salad, soup (very spicy), spring roles, Pad Thai, and a desert. Overall, the spring roles stuck on the most in my mind, but the whole meal was excellent.
After being full of delicious meal, our group attended a traditional Thai boxing match. The atmosphere was very interesting, with about half locals and half tourists, where most of the locals approached the white tourists to make bets on the match. The whole venue looked like something from an underground boxing match that really was never suppose to take place. With an already amazing day, there was no way I could believe that Friday would be even better, but it only did!
Friday: The day started off leaving the hostel on a “tok-tok”, which is commonly known as a three-wheel motorcycle used as a taxi. It was coined with the name “tok-tok” because of the sound the engine makes as the automobile takes off and pretty much any time it moves. (aka the sound is like the engine is about to die). Nowadays, the name has been transformed to almost any form of paid form of transportation in Thailand. The truck we were it was formed to fit about 12 people with a cover on the back and benches on the sides. As we entered the Thai jungle on the Tok-Tok, the scenery got so beautiful. If you imagine any jungle movie ever filmed, this looked exactly the same.
Riding elephants was the first to-do item on the list for Friday. This wasn’t your walk in a circle at the circus on an elephant ride. It was very intense with about ½ of time I had the feeling of falling off the elephant and the other ½ keeping the elephant from drenching me in mud. The elephant trekked a good thirty-minute walk around the territory. With climbing several hills on the back of the 5-ton creature, the elephant ride was something to write home about.
From the elephant ride, we ditched the tok-tok and began our trek into the heart of the Thai jungle. The trek has several different degrees of difficulty. At some points, we had to cross streams as we balance on well positioned branch or climb steep inclines with straight 100 feet drops on both sides of the path. The hike reminded me of the Hollywood classic “Tropical Thunder” with all of the lush foliage around the characters in the movie, it almost made me feel like I was an extra. Our destination was the top of the mountain, which was inhabited by a local tribe.
We arrived just before sunset at a place with no electricity and lots of bamboo huts. The village consisted of about 50 different huts where the people in the village lived. As we entered the village, our group received looks as if we were the first white people the village had seen in weeks. We were honored by getting to stay at the queen of the village’s hotel. The “hotel” consisted of a bamboo floor that was elevated about 5 feet off the ground. It was an amazing structure that had the ability to hold at least 20 people. The view was absolutely spectacular, especially at night. It was the most stars I have ever seen in my life, it seemed like the sky was lit by the magnitude of them.
With three hours of hiking through the jungle, my body was worn down. Only one thing could solve this, a 150 Baht Thai massage (for those of you keeping tract at home, that’s about $4 American). For on $4, two Thai girls massaged me for 30 minutes, it was worth the money. After an authentic Thai meal, our tour guide, Good, serenaded us. He tried to sing several American pop songs and was fairly successful, but he also taught us a local Thai song. It went like this.
*Doo doo doo doo ter tam
(Look what she did)
Tam mai teung tam gab chan dai
(How could you do this to me) x2
(Look what she did)
Tam mai teung tam gab chan dai
(How could you do this to me) x2
After karaoke, it was time to rest our bodies for the next days strenuous hike back down the mountain. We were equipped for the nights sleep with a mosquito net and about 5 blankets. Throughout the night, the blankets def came in handy because it was the coldest I have experienced yet.
Saturday: Upon waking up to roosters at 7 A.M., we prepared for the hour hike down the hill. Again the trek filled its promises of providing beautiful scenery all the way down the mountain. At the base of the mountain, a waterfall greeted us with a little cool down moment. For the next hour, we hiked along a stream that provided a couple of balancing acts, where I was surprised with my athletic ability on not falling in the water. A couple instances along the trek required me to balance on about four inch branches that spanned a distance of about 20 feet to cross the river. Luckily I didn’t end up wet on this part of the trip. (but I wasn’t out of the clear yet) We came to an opening in the jungle were I witnessed one of the more beautiful sites I have ever seen in my life. On all sides of us were magnificent mountains that towered over us. The sky was has blue as I have ever seen it.
The last part of the jungle trek included white water rafting. While there is no comparison to the Grand Canyon of Hatch rafting, it was still very rough and faced several severe rapids. Especially since we were the one controlling the rafts with our oars. From the normal raft, we boarded a bamboo raft. The bamboo raft is exactly what it sounds like, made out of bamboo and rope. We looked like Tom Hanks trying to escape from an island. Except our raft was submerged 4 inches in the water the whole time. Luckily, we were only on the raft for a few minutes. Sadly after rafting, our jungle trek came to an end, which meant back to Chiang Mai, then Bangkok, and then the reality of school in Hong Kong.
Overall, Thailand was an amazing experience. I would strongly suggest visiting Chiang Mai, if anyone is interested in coming to Thailand in the near future. Honestly, the trip was one of the best weekends of my life.
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