Amazing times in Chiang Mai & it's incredible jungle

We had such a fab time in Chiang Mai.....the city itself has such a charm about it, so many things to see & do and it seems to have just the perfect mix of traditional/western that we really did fall in love with the place.
We stayed in Somphet Market which is THE place to buy all of your fresh produce, meat & fish etc so walking past here every day was such a treat, seeing all of the locals eating & buying. And the smells we nearly always amazing :-)

We visited quite a few temples, but to be honest by now we were pretty much templed out, and our favourite pastime (as always) was just to wander the streets & find some great local street food.

However the main highlight was our 2 night/3 day trek to the Jungle & Elephant camp. The actual trek was great, the scenery changing between paddy fields & 'in the thick of it' jungle.....but the best bit was rocking up at the Elephant Camp & sleeping literally with them! Our bed for the night was a mattress under a gazebo, about 200 meters away from them, so close that they actually woke us in the night with their trumpeting. It was great!!
We got to bare back ride them and wash them, and then the next day whilst in the jungle we had to hide from a wild one. In between walking we visited some amazing waterfalls that you could actually slide down, and we got to do some white water rafting too. The people we met on this trek made it a fab experience too.

When we got back to Chiang Mai to be honest we were knackered. So the next day we took a visit to the Women's Prison - we'd been recommended to have a massage here as 6 months prior to the women being released they train to become masseurs & receive a percentage of monies taken to set them up in their life after prison. Not only is it a commendable scheme the massage we got was incredible!! They use their elbows, feet, bend you over their knees........all for a grand total of 7 quid for 2 hours massage!! It was so good we went twice :-)

An unexpected night out took us to Doi Suthep lake. We were taken here by some locals, after we'd sampled many glasses of the lethal Sangsom whisky with them! There are lots of food stalls & bamboo huts situated all around the lake & it really is only known by the locals, so much in fact I think we were the only white faces there :-)
It's definitely not a luxury set-up, more like a picnic area but it was great fun just sitting around on mats in these makeshift huts. Was was a bit scary though was the food.....especially what is known as 'dancing shrimp' which is literally a bowl of live shrimp that jumps around in the bowl. So we didn't eat a great deal that night!

I also took a Thai cooking class & I managed to create some of my fave dishes, the more traditional ones like Massaman curry, Tom Yam soup & Pad Thai noodles. Not a shrimp in sight thank goodness! And even if I say so myself they really were as tasty as what i'd ordered in restaurants - so I really don't have any excuse not to cook these when i get back home.

All in all I think we spent about 10 days here in between the jungle trek & our little trip to Pai (see the next instalment!) and to be honest we could have stayed longer.

written by

mich_and_dan_moors on October 26, 2011 from Chiang Mai, Thailand

from the travel blog: mich_and_dan_moors's Travel Blog

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