Saying bye bye to Chiang Mai

The 20th October was our last time in Chiang Mai with other members of our PT family. 

Matt,Harry, Tori, Grace, Alex and I decided to splash out a bit and go our for a pizza to celebrate as well as a few drinks at Thai 1 On (although our final visit did result in a free bucket!).

At the Italian

Last night with the famalam at Thai 1.

Alex and I had made plans to start volunteering at Care for Dogs the next day (which had been very stressful to organise). We thought we had arranged for a taxi to pick us up from Libra Guesthouse at 12:30AM (after Thai 1) but no taxi driver turned up! We made a couple of phone calls only to be met with an angry voice at the end of the phone demanding why we were waking him up!

This meant that we had nowhere to stay that night. We ended up having to share a room with Harry and Matt and work out how we'll get to Care for Dogs in the morning.

I woke up early the next morning and apologised profusely to a very shocked Dao (owner) who said it was not a problem. Very kindly, she then arranged for someone from the guesthouse to drive us to Care for Dogs (for a small fee of course).

At Care for Dogs we underwent an orientation with a bunch of other new volunteers. There was a couple, 2 guys from Egypt, a family with a kid who was about 15/16 and a girl from Denmark. 

After our introduction we walked some of the dogs and spent the rest of the afternoon socialising with them.

We discovered that the girl from Denmark was named Tara and that she was 19. She was staying at a place called Nugent Waterside. She said it was only a 10 minute bike ride away and that it was cheap.

So, I called the owner and arranged to stay there, instead of the other place we were meant to be staying.

As we still had our massive rucksacks and struggled to walk anywhere with them one of the Thai women arranged for one of the workers to take us to the guesthouse in his truck.

Our room at Waterside was pure luxury. We had a fan, AC, toilet paper, a shower (as opposed to a wet room), a duvet and a wardrobe!

View from dinner at Nugent Waterside

That evening Tara,Alex and I cycled on bikes (that we could borrow for free) to a pizza restaurant. This was terrifying. We cycled along a main road on the hard shoulder ( which motorbikes also seemed to use!)

So began our 3 week journey at Care for Dogs.

Also the title of this post doesn't really make sense. Care for Dogs is still in

Chiang Mai but its much more rural.

Pai (pronounced Bai)

Well Pai was an experience to say the least. The journey there involved an amazing 762 curves in the road. Grace, Tori and Alex all get travel sick. So I spent my time praying that nobody throws up.

Thankfully they didn't.

Our guesthouse was super cute - we had the family room (awww) which was amazing! The room had AC, a fan, WiFi, coloured stones in the bathroom and duvets! Literal luxury.

On the 19th we went to see the White Buddha, the canyon, a Chinese village and a waterfall. We asked the guy who owned the guesthouse how best to get around Pai and he recommended that we all hire motorbikes. Pfffffff. Like that's a good idea! In the end we finally persuaded him to tell us that there is in fact a taxi company that we could use to drive us around for the day. This seemed much safer + the car was air conditioned!

We all thought that we had to cover up to go see the Buddha but people were just wearing whatever. There we were wearing trousers and a t-shirt to cover our shoulders feeling like absolute mugs cos we were dying of heat! Anyway, it was amazing even if we did have to climb about a million steps.

Steps up to the White Buddha

Our next stop was the canyon - great. More steps. The view was pretty good though.

The Chinese village was next. I say village, I mean a village that completely relies on tourists to survive as all they seem to sell is souvenirs and tea related items. It was really cute though. Best part was I got to do some archery + the views were great.

Our final stop of the day was a waterfall which was along some very narrow roads. You knew as soon as you got there - there were bikini clad farang everywhere. We wandered up to the waterfall but weren't sure if we could get in the water, so we had to make do with sitting on a rock listening to some European guy play the guitar - he was actually quite good.

For lunch/dinner we went back into the main streets of Pai and started looking for some Thai food - which was surprisingly difficult to find considering we were in Thailand. The area seemed dominated by western restaurants, motorbike hire places and bars. Eventually we did find somewhere though.

That evening we went out to a couple of bars and quite a few bartenders seemed pleasantly surprised that we could speak any Thai at all. I guess they're used to twenty-something backpacker who come to Thailand to 'find themselves' and end up getting drunk with a bunch of other farang.

We actually ran into a 50-something guy who had lived in Thailand for 10 years yet he couldn't speak a word of Thai!

It seemed Pai is a very hyped up tourist destination for American (and European) backpackers to congregate and get drunk together. Not that great.

But I did have fun, honest. The girls I was with made it so!

Chiang Mai part 4

16th October 2015 - The day that it had all been leading up to.

TEST DAY

Literally felt so sick, I was incredibly worried about failing the test.

We went to school and straight away sat down and took the test. It was so difficult! We had only finished learning the material the day before!

Thankfully, we only had to wait a couple of hours to find out if we had passed or not. I had! I managed to get 43/50!

                             

After lunch we all went to a couple of museums with our teachers but the tour guides who took us round only spoke broken English, this combined the 40C heat (which was hot for this time of year) meant it was pretty difficult to concentrate on what was being said.

Back at the language centre we all went and sat in the auditorium (after gulping down water) where we received our certificates and listened to a talk by a guy who I think was the manager of the centre. 

Finally, after he had finished talking we all got pizza!! I even got persuaded to try some green fanta which actually tastes pretty good!

Our class at AUA

That evening we all went to our local 'Thai 1 On' to celebrate! We were meeting Nici for a teacher training sesh the next day but that didn't stop a bunch of us from leaving the bar to go do some dancing at our favourite 'Zoe in Yellow'!

The training session was really useful and so worth the treacherous journey there (which involved a lot of traffic, a lot of getting lost and our red truck running out of petrol and having to roll down hills).

That evening was our last one all together in Chiang Mai before we all went our separate ways - so we made something of it. We started off in the uber cool rooftop bar which played great music whilst everyone sat round little tables on a bamboo floor overlooking the wall around Old Town Chiang Mai. Next up was, of course, Zoe in Yellow! Finally followed by Spicy (which resulted in it being shut by the police because it was open past midnight). 

I've said it before and I'll say it again - Chiang Mai is so amazing! By the end of our three weeks here this place had begun to feel like home and I will miss it so much!

Chiang Mai part 3 - The trek

The 6th of October was the best day of my entire life. After school today Tori, Tori Callie, Sophie, Matt,Alex, Mariah, Erin and I all went to the Bunny Cafe! This was so adorable .

The entrance of the 'Lucky Bunny' cafe

There were about 15 rabbits in hutches and we all sat round a tiny little table on tiny little stalls. One by one the guy there put a rabbit on the table. We enticed the rabbits onto our laps with food - sooo cute! We were told about the health and welfare of the rabbits and how they're treated well wit a good diet and that a vet regularly visits.

After the rabbits (and thoroughly washing our hands) we sat down to dinner. Well, I say dinner - it was more of a snack. Meaning that on the way home we stopped at Burger King to properly fill up.

After school the next day a load of us went to the cinema to watch 'The Martian'. The cinema cost 100฿ and the additional food (basically a large popcorn) cost about the same. The cinema was absolutely amazing and super posh, with comfy seats and loads of leg room!

Over that weekend the majority of us went on a mountain trek. We were ready for 8AM dressed in swimsuits and shorts with fat backpacks provided to us by the guesthouse! We all got into 2 trucks - driven by our guides and drove for about 20-30 minutes to a little markets where a load of us but some snacks. By this point my flip flop (May It Rest In Peace) was falling apart - making it impossible to walk in. I could of sworn that it was fine when I put it on!

The next part of our journey was a 2 hour bumpy ride to a waterfall that we could go swimming in! Whilst walking from the bus to the waterfall the top of my flip flop came away from the bottom - rendering them completely unusable! Thankfully Lucy, the angel that she is, lent me her flip flops whilst she wore her trainers.

The water at the waterfall was very cold but once you got in it wasn't so bad! 

After the waterfall I put on my denim shorts over my wet swimsuit due to a lack of a changing area. We then drove to a little wooden restaurant for lunch which tasted amazing! I mean sure, I was freezing cold but the food made up for it. 

Thankfully, we then drove to some hot springs (I promise we do go on a trek at some point!). The hot springs were pretty decent except they weren't hot hot. There was another hot spring which was hotter but apparently is was too hot for any human to touch so were had to stay in the cooler one. 

After this FINALLY the trek began. Oh. My. God. This was hard! Whenever we were going uphill (which was half the time) I felt like my lungs were going to explode. Going downhill (the other half of the time) it felt like my legs were made of jelly and I very nearly fell over so many times.

About half way through the trek we all stopped to eat some snacks. We ate some longan fruit (which was so delicious) some sweets and a really tasty chocolate bar. 

We finally reached our camp at about 6 pm. All of us stayed in a bamboo hut which was really cute. Our beds consisted of a couple of blankets on the floor (two to a bed), a blanket to cover us and of course a mosquito net.

Dinner that night consisted of yellow curry and spring rolls - which tasted amazing. It was the best food I'd had so far! 

After dinner I managed to get my turn in the shower. The shower was in a dark wooden shack and consisted of a hose pipe attached to the wall - it was freezing! Anna had to stand outside and hold all my clothes as there was nowhere to out anything.

Finally, we all wrote on a couple of lanterns and sent them up into the sky, which was insanely pretty!

The next day I woke up (after a freezing night's sleep) and it was pouring with rain outside! When it eventually cleared up we had a brilliant breakfast and packed our bags. 

We then walked down to the river where we could buy a bunch of bananas to feed the elephants - which was a little scary! 

After feeding them we all got in the water to wash them which was fun! We then got the chance to ride them!  

I have to say I did have conflicted emotions about riding the elephants. We had chosen this hike as it was more expensive and we had been assured by our guesthouse that the elephants were well treated. We rode on the elephants back and not on the wooden seats that you sometimes see in travel brochures. This was good as apparently the wooden seats hurt the elephant and are a sign on mistreatment.

We rode the elephant for 20-30 minutes before swapping with others.

We rode the rest of the way down the river on bamboo rafts. Which was decent but not as fun as white water rafting. We moved at a very slow pace and by the end of the seemingly 3 hour ride, we were all freezing! Thankfully, at the end we were greeted with hot food!

Chiang Mai part 2 - AUA Language Course

On Monday 28th our language course at AUA Language Centre started. It was only a 10 minute walk from Libra but quite a few of us were late on the first day (including me) because we all had to take out money to pay for the course and we only found one ATM that had money in.

Our walk from Libra to AUA

Our teacher is called Kanthira and she is so adorable. She laughs all the time and is soooo smiley! Which is great because Thai is SO DIFFICULT!! Not only do you have to learn the words but you also have to learn the tones of the word. Thai involves 5 different tones and depending on what tone you use it changes the meaning of the word. For example, if I were to say 'Kao' in a flat tone it means white. However, if I say it in a rising then falling tone it means rice!

On the 30th I had to take a sick day. Quite a few people have been falling ill with sickness recently, so in the early hours of the morning the sickness came to me and I started throwing up. This time was the only time I've felt homesick so far. As the sickness affected almost everyone it was either a bug or everyone just adjusting to Thai climate and Thai food. I hadn't really had an appetite since coming to Thailand so it could very well be the latter.

That weekend a load of us went up to Mt. Doi Suthep. Libra had arranged two trucks to take us up the very twisty road, which I though was great fun but it proved too sickening for others. Our first stop was a tribal village which had a very cute market. We paid an extra 10฿ to go see the waterfall which was spectacular (well the waterfall wasn't that great, but there were loads of amazing flowers and a great view). We then paid another 10฿ to go see the hill tribe museum which was so interesting and told us about all the different hill tribes in Thailand, how they were different from one another and where to find them.

Our next stop down the mountain was Phuping Palace which is the royal family's winter residence. This place was insanely beautiful. There were loads of amazing building and loads of beautiful flowers and lakes.

Our final stop of the day was a temple further down the mountain called Wat Phra That (Wat means temple in Thai). There were absolutely loads of people here, but there were some fantastic views (even if it did start pouring).

View from the temple

That evening we all went out to a local Irish pub where I was able to eat pizza (although I don't think it had mozzarella cheese on). Afterwards a few people went to go see some Thai boxing whilst 8 of us went to go and see a lady boy cabaret which was so amazing!! The atmosphere was ridiculously happy and the acts were all fantastic!!

We then went to a bar where we were able to stay until half 2 before the police came and closed us down (its the law that all bars and clubs have to close by midnight and is more strictly enforced in Chiang Mai than anywhere else due to politics.)

On Sunday I woke up at 8 as a few of us had decided to go zip lining. We got picked up in a minibus, the journey took about an hour and involved some very steep and twisty roads - even I felt a bit sick. We had to fill out some forms and dress in full body harnesses complete with hair net and helmet (we did look a sight!). 

The course was loads of fun, although we weren't allowed to unhook our own safety ropes and move from section to section without our guides.

At the end we were all given free t-shirts (which you're meant to pay extra for),got a brilliant meal and we were introduced to a fighting beetle. Fighting beetles are huge and are made to fight one another in staged fights. The one that we saw was worth 1000s of baht - and I touched it!

In my next post I talk about my visit to the Bunny Cafe, our visit to the cinema and our weekend trek!