Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Northern Thailand
So I realise it's not quite been a month but figured I probably should do the blogs way more often because we do so much stuff it gets hard to remember what order things are in. So here's the next instalment to the Chribella Adventures.
Back in Bangkok.
So we arrived back in Bangkok after our trip to Kanchanaburi. Whilst we were away we made a couple of new friends. One lady named Manuella who was only doing a day trip and a guy named Ariel who was there for the 2 nights with us. Both coincedently from Argentina. Never met a single Argentinian in my life and happen to meet 2 in two days.
That evening Chris and I decided we would like to experience a ping pong show down the red light district in pattong. (When in Rome) for those of you that are unsure what a ping pong show is - please take a moment now to google 'thai ping pong show' that should clear things up!
We invited Manuella and Ariel to dinner with us and told them about what we wanted to do that evening. Ariel didn't speak a lot of English so I tried to use google translate to explain to him what we were seeing.
Manuella spoke superb english- but unfortunetly she thought we were going to watch people play ping pong or perhaps play ping pong ourselves,
Oh dear.
Chris and I look at eachother and think s*** how are we going to tell these people what we are taking them to see!
So we explained to Manuella who cracked up laughing and was completely up for it- she told Ariel in Spanish, who literally didn't believe us ha!
So we went to the show- well strip club, got our names written buy a talented woman using a pen shoved up her Noonee. Ariel was petrified to even go to the toilet alone because he was harassed by prostitutes, which made the entire experience even more hilarious. I'm not going to go into too much detail on aspects of the show, but it involved, needles, candles, ping pongs, balloons, pens and 20 meters of ribbon. We kept the drawing as a souvenir and legged it out without paying! Ha!
The day I tried to change my name on Facebook to Anna Beer Belly...
So, with sore heads we went to Sky Bangkok. Sky Bangkok is the tallest building in Thailand. It's 88 stories high and we met Katie to have lunch on the 86nd floor. I've never been that high before and I was truly amazed at the views, and also all the pools at the tops of luxury hotels without a single person by them. What a waste. The food was delicious I had slow cooked braised beef in red wine- and Chris had every thing they had going haha.
After lunch we set out to meet Tommy and Mia. Yay! We met them on the Koh San road - where they had a 5 litre jug of Chang awaiting us.
Chang is the beer of Thailand- it's completely unregulated, which means it's pot luck whether your getting 6% or 40% vol.
So one jug finished and turnt into another- then Katie joined, then that jug finished and turnt into another, then Manuella joined then that jug turnt into another, oh and then came the balloons.
I've also failed to mention that we had actually planned to go to Muay Thai boxing in Bangkok that evening, and also the day previous to this I was adamant I didn't like beer.
But Oh no we sat in that Irish pub a drank through about 25 litres of Chang and copious amounts of balloons.
I blame Tommy and Mia.
Once Chris and I were well and truly 'Chang-ed' we decided to make our short walk home.
The Koh San Road is a busy road with a thriving market day a night, selling all things from frogs and grasshoppers to iPod speakers and dresses. Chris fancied a bicycle on the way home that evening accept it wasn't for sale.
Watching him weave in and out of groups of people with the biggest grin on his face shouting 'D'ya like my bike?' To everyone was hilarious. But then receiving high fives from the Thais and compliments about his cool bike was actually reducing me to tears. Like it was actually hurting to laugh. I realised I'd forgotten my phone at the bottom of Koh San road so he cycled all the way back up - right PAST where the crime scene and ran into Katie in the bar to grab it... Saying 'I gotta be quick my bikes outside' so funny. He got a security guard to look after it outside macdonalds following a discussion about how bad the theft was on that road- then spent about 10 mins outside our hostel trying to hide it so it wasn't stolen.
We wake up with Chang-overs.
The stolen bike, was stolen.
And Bangkok had us.
We decided to go and see some temples before we were on route out of the city, thank god. Lol.
We got to the first temple the home of the giant buddah. I wish I could remember the temple name but I can't- and I don't even remember the specifics of how big this thing was but believe me it was GIANT.
I decided after the first temple, that actually I was quite bored of temples, 6 temples in 4 weeks, once you seen one you seen em all, I mean you wouldn't fly to England and walk around the churches.
Ayutthaya - the ancient capital.
We got a bus from North Bangkok bus station which took 2 hours to get there.
We arrive, to a city, more stinky then Bangkok, and appear to be the only westerners in the village.
Although we felt like celebrities it was slightly uncomfortable being stared at where ever we were.
We tried to book the night train to the next stop Asoon as we got to Ayutthaya but the trains were fully booked for the next 3 days, which panicked us because there was no way you could stay in this town for 3 days- despite the hill Billy's that lived there, there was literally nothing to do and I felt like I had caught a decease within the first hour. So we decided to opt for the night bus instead. And booked it for the following evening.
We checked into our hotel for the night and hit the hay.
The next morning we hired bikes and bicycled around the ruins, although technically this was another huge temple it was really interesting and completely different from the rest.
The city was thailand ancient capital and you could only begin to imagine what it would have looked like in its true splendor.
Unfortunetly though the entire city was burnt to the ground in 1767 by the Burmese in war, the soilders who seized the city decapitated every single Buddhas head before torching the place and only managed to have the city for 3 months before they were over thrown again.
Chiang-Mai
We arrived via a night bus and reached our hostel around 7am. Threw down our stuff and set off for Tiger Kingdom.
After our horrendous experience just north of Bangkok at 'Tiger Temple' I spent hours researching into both Tiger Temple and Tiger Kingdom, something I wish I had invested time in before. I was recommended to go to Tiger Temple in Chiang Mai a few years back now and when we researched and found that tiger temple wasn't in Chiang Mai IT was in fact in Kanchanaburi I was sure the person that advised me must have been wrong. Obviously after actually going to the horrific hell hole by mistake and being ashamed to have given the vile human beings money to support there wrong doings I made it my mission to find this safe haven I had heard so much about.
We arrived at Tiger Kingdom and immediately I could see a vast difference in the two. This place was kind of like a theme park- but in a good way, everyone happy and so much information everywhere.
The tigers weren't in chains and I had read that tigers do spend the most part of afternoons lounging around even in the wild so arriving early morning and seeing them all active and running around in and out the pools to then hand feeding the babies at noon there lunch and watching them nap proved there was no sedation here.
I wasn't brave enough to go in with the big boys- you sign a disclaimer on the way in and accidents with these tigers due to no chains and sedation is obviously something that had happened in the past, and although this is going to sound a tad cruel, but U found that rather warming, they are wild animals its in there instincts and again it shows that there not drugged up.
That evening we finally got to see Muay - Thai boxing, a martial art form of boxing established in Thailand. Katie met us for this and we celebrated this but drinking more beer. The fights that were on that evening were all international so it was really cool watching Irish, English, South American, Canadians and Dutch all battle it out with the Thais. Also got a bit heated amongst the group around us and ended up putting some bets on, I won 60 baht! (About £1.20) Woop.
1 night 2 day trek into the jungle and sleep with the hill tribes.
I'm going to start by saying its a very foolish idea to drink copious amounts of Chang the night prior to such a large commitment!
Get picked up to be driven 2 hours north of Chiang Mai to meet our guide, and I'm out the van in 10 minutes throwing up! WELL DONE.
Soon after throwing my breakfast up I was hungry again and felt okay so the show went on lol.
We met our guide and did a 5km trek up the mountain and above the clouds. The views were worth all the hard work and we both felt a huge sense of achievement.
On the way up we stopped at a waterfall which had a slide sort of built in the middle of it, it was all natural and was where the force of the water comes rushing down it makes a mould perfect for man kind to enjoy.
We all climbed up and had a go- I only went once, as it was a bit scary that high as did Katie- not that I think she was scared of heights though. Chris ran up and down like a hyper active child several times with his go pro toy.
We were in a group of about 10 and we all slept together in a hut- which reminded me of when I used to go camping with the sea cadets haha. Probably had as little sleep as I would of had I been on a cadet trip Aswel as the wild pack of dogs we were warned not to touch or look at upon entering the village were relentless all night long, I was so scared I had to wake Chris up at 4am to take me to the toilet.
The sunset and sunrise are the best we have had the pleasure of seeing in all our travels so far.
We began the walk back down the mountain around 8am and the mountain was so steep that when we got to the first waterfall stop on the way down, all our legs were trembling and I had fallen over twice and lost a pandora charm from my bracelet :-(
When we finally reached the bottom we went to an elephant camp and did a trek through a river with them, this was okay, and although they looked like they treated well I still don't like the thought of the elephants lugging tourists around all day. When we booked the trek it was impossible to find one that didn't include this activity at the bottom as I think they use it kind of as transportation if you know what I mean. But when we got off the elephants and realised we had just gone round in a circle both Chris and I agreed that we wouldn't be supporting the camps like this anymore and if we were forced to one on a tour we would spend the time feeding and playing with the elephants (like we did in Kanchanaburi)
After this we did white water Rapids, this was cool although nowhere near as fast or frightening as what I remember from when I did it before- but then I was about 11 years old so thought perhaps unfair to compare.
All in all the trip was great fun and far more organised then the one we did North of Bangkok. It upgraded Chiang Mai to my favourite place in Thailand (so far)
When we originally planned our trip to Chiang Mai, volunteering in the elephant nature park had always been priority, I found out about this scheme 4 years ago and researched heavily into it! Unfortunetly though when it came to booking a couple of weeks before they were all fall until the end of March. Our original plan was to arrive in Chiang Mai, do a trek and then do Pai (an area 3 ours north of Chiang Mai) then do the elephants on the way back before leaving for Laos.
Seeing as doing the elephants nature park wasn't an option, we decided not to extend our visa and to leave for Laos.
Good news is, we booked the nature park for the 28th March.... I'll dedicate an entire blog to that week volunteering! So excited!
Next blog instalment..... Laos xx
- comments