January 25th... Hill Tribe Trek Day 3

So I finally had a good night’s sleep at last! The temperature inside the bamboo shelter we were staying in happened to be nice and cool, but not so cold I had to really snuggle up. This morning’s breakfast consisted of eggs and toast, along with the all added extras we always had. The recurring food stuff we seem to be having a lot of at the moment is pineapple, so I am slightly bored of that now. It is really nice the way they have prepared all these locally home cooked meals for us though.

Today was meant to be an 8.30am in the morning, but by 9.30am our local guides were still building the bamboo rafts to be used when we floated down the river. Apparently they have to build a new raft every time a new group comes, and the bamboo used is transported between two points of the river each time due to the flow of the river. The guides built 3 bamboo rafts, each about 16 bamboo poles wide, and long enough for up to about 8 people on each boat. At the front of the boat was a structure designed to hold the bags. The poles were lashed together with bamboo by putting horizontal bamboo poles across the boats. Let’s just say everything was bamboo.

By 10.00am we finally managed to get onto the water. When reading the initial itinerary of the trip it said that we were having a nice gentle few hours flowing down the river through the jungle. Let’s just say that 3 boats, 3 guys meant that the girls got to sit down or stand up relaxing whilst the manpower had to steer the boat at the back. We had a guide at the front as well however who did most of the hard work however. Because the water was shallowish, the way to steer a bamboo raft was not by paddling, but by digging a pole in the water and holding it, which made the boat turn depending on what side the pole was inserted. To make things even more interesting we were immediately presented with rapids, and shortly after the boat in front of me sank after hitting a rock in front of the rapids, which resulted in everyone having to hold onto a slippery rock to stop being sucked into the rapids. Even our guide seemed to be really worried! As we continued further downstream we got more and more rapids, and it got to a point where the girls would have to get out the boat and walk past the rapids, whilst me and guide steered the boat through. As the people in the middle were standing and had no pole, there was little stability. Half way day, I managed to go into the middle, where I managed to just sit down and take in the beauty of the area, despite getting a soaking every time we entered rapids.

When we finally reached the final village, there were shouts of joy as some tired and achy people celebrated completing the trek. Upon arrival however my boat suddenly stopped and my leg fell between the bamboo poles and got stuck, which wasn’t so good! The guide managed to release me though, although it wasn’t nice getting laughed at as I helplessly stood there! We had noodles waiting for us here, and I of course polished off the spare ones as usual. After saying goodbye to out guides who were absolutely brilliant, even if they did think they were funny, we set off on out long drive back to Chiang Mai. It was really nice sitting on the back of the truck watching elephants roam round the local landscape, and see the river wind its way through the dense forest around us. Before long we were back onto the main road and by about 4ish we were back to the hotel where I had a lovely shower. It wasn’t really practical to shower on the trek as the village’s showers were very basic, and also cold and dirty!

This evening we lucky is was a Saturday which meant we meant to the famous Saturday night market in Chiang Mai. This was much busier compared to the night bazaar we went to previously. Selling the same kind of stuff as many of the markets, it was the size that made this market, as little side streets went off the main street creating a buzz round the whole area. There were a lot of tourists here. We had dinner first and I tried some weird crispy chicken things, a pork steak and rice. It was also nice to try a different beer here (Leo) as I have been having Chang a lot of the time. Then came to the time for me try the insects after one of the others bought some. I thought I would out do her and just buy the biggest possible ones, so as far as I am aware I ate grasshoppers, crickets, silk worms, and some maggot things. The maggots were definitely the worst.

We then split up and I continued round the market, trying new things like chrysanthemum juice in a bamboo shoot, and more homely things like chocolate waffles. I did however get stuck in the whole girls in a clothes shop situation. Although I even managed to find a top saying “Chang” on it which I really liked. To finish  off the evening we went to the main market square where there was some live music, although the women singing in the band was very stocky and deep voiced when singing! We finally realized it was time to go when some women with the same voice as Brandine off the Simpsons came on stage and starting squealing some Chinese song. A quick trip to the local internet café, where I was plunged in the awkward situation of sitting next to an old man watching gay porn, to Skype people and update Facebook then rounded off the evening nicely on what was a rather tiring day.