Back on track

OK, so about two weeks prior to my departure we took a weekend and a few days off to explore Chiang Mai. Being the second biggest city in the country it has a lot to offer, but still nothing in size compared to Bangkok. It's usually said that Chiang Mai has all the good stuff that one can find in Bangkok, but none of the bad. Traffic is a lot better, it's obviously less crowded which makes it easier to get around, but the best part was the cooler and more pleasant climate. Nice and warm, but without the humidity found elsewhere in Thailand.

The only thing we had planned was a jungle tour that started the next day, so upon arrival after a freezing 12 hour busride from Nong Khai we were happy just walking around in the sun checking out what the city had to offer. We ended up at the Chiang Mai Zoo, which was pretty cool. They had pretty much all you could expect from a Zoo and my personal favorite were the tigers. Not just normal ones but the black and white (forgot the name...zebra-style?) tigers. I kept running back and forth between the tigers and the leopards like an excited five-year old trying to get some decent pictures while my fellow travelers became increasingly annoyed and wanted to check out the elephants. All the girls seemed to like elephants better for some reason. We compromised and decided to pay a visit to the Pandas. Not too exciting, they just sit there and eat, but not too bad either.

At night we wanted to check out Chiang Mai's nightlife, but all we could find around where we lived were the kind of shabby bars with young thaigirls and old western men you really don't want to go to. After a while we stumbled upon a club that looked really cool, only one problem though, no foreigners allowed. Luckily, it seems to be an universal rule that rules in bars seldom apply when applied on girls. Bouncers can always be persuaded and it helps to have a thaiguy magnet in the shape of a dutch girl with you. Five minutes later we slipped passed the line and spent the rest of the night partying with the locals. It saved the night and we had lots of fun.

The next day it was time for the jungle tour, which started out with some elephant riding. I thought they would just carry us around on a plain field for a while, but instead we went on some really steep paths which made you wonder exactly how much trouble you'd be in if the elephant slipped, sprained a leg or whatever. Being really nice guys, Hampus and I also made Yvette sit on the elephants head with those big ears as the only thing to hold on to, brave girl. She did fine though, and after we were done with that, we started some five hours of trekking along the side of a mountain that would eventually take us to the place we would spend the night at.

My camera ran out of batteries just as the trekking begun, so I unfortunately just have one picture of the jungle, and none of the hilltribe village we spent the night in, or the things we did the next day. The village was very nice, and we had a great time with good food, some local performances and whatever they call the moonshine they served us in small hand-carved mugs. Feeling a bit too brave, we also agreed to try some local cuisine made up of...raw meat drenched in the spiciest sauce I've ever tasted. I won't try it again.

More trekking followed the next day, and on the way to the white-water and bamboo rafting we met a crazy danish couple who accompanied us for the rest of the day. We stopped and swam in a really beautiful waterfall, much nicer than the one on the road to Chiang Khan. Again, too bad I don't have any pictures of that. The white-water rafting was fun, but could have been better if it hadn't been so dry. High season for any kind of activities on the river is the rainy season of course, and since we were there in the warm season there wasn't much water in the river. At lunch in a little hut next to the jungle, the danish guy all of a sudden requested to sing karaoke(?!), much to the locals delight. Just a little hut, looked like a toolshed, no running water, some basic stuff for cooking....and a super-modern karaoke machine. Anyway, the rest of us sat there confused out in the middle of nowhere while this guy had us endure his interpretations of various songs until our guide declared that if we wanted to make it back in time, we (he) had to get going. Some nice, peaceful bamboo-rafting later we headed back to Chiang Mai and got ready for another night out.

The girls had decided to get tattoos. It's a bit of a cliché to get tattoos in Thailand, I know, and so did they, but nevertheless they were determined to get it done that night. We found a place that seemed professional enough and while the girls got more and more anxious, I got more and more relaxed drinking beer, looking through the various photos of the tattoo-artists work, contemplating whether I'd looked good or not with a giant "Thailand 4-ever" tattoo on my back...

After the girls were done we celebrated by playing a few games of pool where we all got our butts kicked by some local guy, had some cocktails and later moved on to this huge club we'd heard about the other day by some of the people we had met at the "no foreigners place". Entrance was not cash, but a bottle of SangSom whiskey in true thai style, and the place was indeed huge, but of course...no real dancefloor. There the people would not only dance by their table, but also on them or wherever there was an empty spot. Crazy but fun.
We did some temple sightseeing on our last day and of course checked out the markets of Chiang Mai. The temple we went to was Wat Doi Suthep, definitely worth a visit and the climb up the stairs leading up to the temple. Not much more to say, another 12 hour busride took us back to Nong Khai, but this time the A/C wasn't on full power all the way which made it a lot nicer than on the way there.