I heart Thai Airlines. I also heart 1 hour flights. The plane is another huge one, 9 seats across, and we had the middle three seats to ourselves. Aisle seat for Megan, whoo woot! We are on time, have a full selection of recent movies, a decent snack, land easily, grab our bags, and immediately see the wooden Baan Boo Loo sign at the exit. Mr Veera takes us in the large, freshly painted VIP tuk tuk to the resort/guest house. Expecting a jungle town a bit off the beaten path, we're booth a bit bummed to find a bustling metropolis of 150k people with what seems to be another 100k Japanese and western tourist. We are further alarmed to wind through dense urban alleys to arrive at a very rustic abandoned lot. We catch our breath turnaround and look across the street. Ah yes all the tree houses from the pictures we saw efficiently placed on a gated lot surrounded by apartment buildings. Ok… so this isn’t going to be the jungle getaway we had in mind, but we quickly recalibrate our expectations. We get settled and are told to definitely go check out the night market. We had snacked all day but decided to make the 25 min walk across the 1km old city and out the Thae Pae gate. We shared some pad Thai that was 10 baht (~33 cents) and other local treats then took a smaller, rusty non-VIP tuk tuk back home for a very quiet and peaceful first night.
Day 1 -- Breakfast is served each day at a large communal table and we meet Suzanne and Jeff traveling from Vancouver on a late honeymoon as well. It's Saturday morning and we talk about how to get the most out of Chiang Mai by sharing our research and travel tips. We first find out that all of the jungle day trips we had heard about are actually an hour to 90 minutes north. Other options include what seems to be the land equivalent of SeaWorld which holds tigers, monkeys, and butterflies. Megan vetoes this tourist trap and we opt for the slightly less touristy half day at an elephant camp. Before we can take off we need to solve our laundry situation. In the effort to travel light, we have depleted our 6 day clothing supply and are starting to run into the question of whether 3 days is a reasonable underwear limit for walking around in 104 degree heat in 100% humidity (the answer is no, but desperate times call for desperate measures). Luckily for us Baan Boo Loo only charges 70 baht (~2 dollars) to launder the dirty, dirty contents of our travel packs! More experienced travelers would have asked when to expect the laundry back before sending it out, but being the newbies we are, we find out that our current outfits are all we’ll have for the next few days.
To occupy our morning, we head out to explore the city and to grab some more sundries including a new wardrobe, sunscreen, shampoo, and a bit of lunch. We find an open air cafeteria following the 75% rule (no more than 25% tourists in any restaurant where we eat). After a lunch of crispy pork with kale and a red curry and a bit of shopping we head out to the elephant camp.
There are no cabs in Chiang Mai, so your travel options are 1) a Tuk tuk which is a three wheeled vehicle similar to a motorcycle with a rickshaw cart attached to it; or 2) Red-trucks - a pickup truck that has a makeshift nylon canopy over the truck bed and two padded benches running the length of the truck bed. A red-truck can accommodate as many as 10 people in the back (we heard stories of them carrying up to 30 people) with 5 on each bench facing one another.
For the 90 minute ride to the elephant camp, we’re picked up in red-truck (which is much more highway appropriate) for out ride in the 100+ degree heat and up to the mountains. The thing about loading down a red truck with 10 people is that it discourages the driver from maniacal driving and further helps weigh the back of the truck down. As the additional people weigh down the truck’s shocks, they tend to dampen what would otherwise be a quite pronounced trampoline effect triggered by even the smallest bump in the road. So of course in our first red-truck experience it's just the two of us. Despite our best efforts to weigh down the truck with our maniacal eating in Beijing and Bangkok, we’re not match for an overly exuberant driver as we speed around slow moving vehicles on bumpy one-two lane, paving optional mountain roads. Ben loves it, but Megan is a bit less sure about the experience. We arrive at the camp alive and dusty. For our troubles, we’re served a home-cooked lunch with a potato curry and ate it in an effort to add mass before the ride home.
We change into bathing suits and Mahout clothing which is sort of a loose jean pant and shirt (think of CrissCross in their heyday). Our guide, TK, gives us green bananas to feed to a baby elephant. The baby spits out our food and loses interest in us quickly.
TK takes us over to meet our elephant and to practice mounting and dismounting her. The way on is climbing up onto her outstretched leg shouting ‘Soi’ to make her lift her leg and you higher towards her shoulder. The next step is then clutching at her shoulder blades for leverage as you swing your leg up and over her to finally pulling yourself into a resting position in the nape of her neck with your knees behind her ear. Done properly, this is a quick and simple maneuver more difficult than climbing onto a bike. Done like Ben and Megan, this is closer to a toddler trying to climb onto a couch that’s just a bit too high and may result in a split crotch in your Mahout outfit. Getting off is a bit easier, but more harrowing as you’re encouraged to slide over her forehead, down her trunk (in theory... It's more of a jumping into TK's arms from 10 feet up). Whoa they are big!
Once we’re both finally situated atop our elephant, we tour the elephant camps walking trail’s trees, mud, and stream under the disinteresting supervision of our handler. Despite some unnerving detours to snack on various grasses, this is an amazing ride complete with our handler’s American pop tunes blasting out of a tiny handheld speaker! After the ride we slide off in to a pond to wash the elephant. Last we feed the elephants a bit more and hear about the camp, the King’s program to transition to a tourism (vs. logging) based model for Thai elephants, and why the hook and chain are better for the elephants. We're semi-convinced and head back to select some pictures to buy, enjoy a beer, and meet the other travelers that will also be on the truck back to town. Before leaving we have a few shots of Thai Whiskey with TK and hear about his year spent in the U.S. somewhere between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
Our truck home has two Irish girls, an Irish couple, a South African couple, and a retired teacher from Alaska. We knew Thailand was very traveler and backpacker friendly, but this is our first chance to chat at length with other travelers to hear their experiences and their reason for visiting. Of some compelling stories, the most memorable one is of the 2 Irish friends who graduated, worked for a year, then started a 6 month journey to see the world before ultimately arriving in Australia where they hope to capitalize on improve financial prospects. The ride seems so much faster this time and before we know it we are back to the guesthouse.
Night 1 -- We shower, cool off for the moment, and enjoy our outdoor living room. We ask the owner Orn for a dinner suggestion. The advice is to find a Cafe or Thai restaurant near a place called Cafe, hmmm this seems tricky but we are determined. After some tense sweaty walks up and down the street where the tuk tuk drops us, we give up and fall back to the second choice: The Big Chili (which is unsurprisingly in clear violation of the 75% rule). The food is good, but this is pretty popular restaurant with the tourists. We head home tired from our long day. Tomorrow is the 4 hour trek through the jungle (walking only)!
Day 2 -- the red-truck ride north leaves at 9. We meet some new trekkers including the French consultant and airplane financier living in Hong Kong and a Swiss guy on a solo 9 month round the world trip seemingly on a 20 EUR budget. We get on the path around 11 after winding up impossibly steep roads in the red truck. Apparently we had just missed the cabbage harvest because we see families on the side on the road packing pickups overfilled with cabbage heads. When we get to the first clearing we look out onto beautiful hillsides of lush greenery spotted with cabbage fields resting on the side of steep mountainsides.
We are set to walk to a waterfall for lunch, visit a local village or hill tribe, and see a bat cave. We start out towards the waterfall through these cabbage fields then wind through bamboo forest with the local village's dogs leading the way and bringing up the rear. After an hour we make it to our lunch spot, which requires a rapid decent down 'steps' worn into the red soil. We cross a bamboo bridge and grab a quick snack of sticky rice and fried chicken while the group ahead of us clears the waterfall. The group moves on and we rush to change into our bathing suits for a bit of relief from the midday hiking in the midst of the hot season. The waterfall consists of a bathing pool accessible via sharp rocks or a slide worn into the rock alongside the waterfall. We cool off in the bathing pool then muster the courage to climb the slippery, sheer rock face to get us to the water slide. After a few trips down the slide and sufficient time in the bathing pool we change back to our sweat drenched clothes and proceed with the hike.
The next stop is a village where they sell much needed water and honey obtained from climbing hundred foot trees with ladders that consist of little more than small wooden pegs hammered into the trunks. Finally it's another trek up steep switchbacks. Our guide Parn (bowler hat, skinny jeans, long sleeves, Lennon glasses, and menthols every 30 mins.) stops his incessant flirting with the French ladies to tell us the legend of the white blood queen of Bali.
After a break we hike some more and after a quick jaunt off the main path we head towards the bat cave. The cave is a lot cooler than the hot jungle that we're now growing to despise just bit. Ben makes it into the bat cave where he crawls along a dark path trying to avoid stalagmites, et al (iPhones were the preferred flashlight, but he forgot his) until he arrived to an open cavern filled with blurred movement at the top. A few pictures were taken and everyone filed out. By this time we're really feeling stretched, unfortunately there's another (fireant filled) hour descent to the extraction point. We enjoy the scenery which includes more great vistas, lychee orchards, and more cabbage fields. We (Megan) dig deep to stretch ourselves to push through the final hike with only minimal tears. After the long ride home, we discover that the city streets are closed off to accommodate the monthly (?), weekly (?) “walking market". After the driver negotiates a modified drop off point with each passenger individually, Megan not so subtly reminds him that it is 1) hot; 2) uncomfortable sitting on a bouncing bench for 90+ minutes 3) undesirable to tack on an additional 20 minute walk to the end of our trek day. Walkers be Damned! Needless to say we were the last ones dropped off and enjoyed our 20 minute walk home.
Night 2 -- We shower off the jungle, cool off, and then go to explore the walking market which seems to very much resemble the night market, but longer and with traffic implications. We pick up some small gifts and are feeling up to eating the street food at the market. We eat a variety of meat skewers, Thai sausage, a cup of coconut corn, squid on a stick (undercooked – yikes), a crepe, and a pot of the spiciest Tom Yum with seafood Ben has ever had. The Tom Yum cook painstakingly prepped the soup over the course of ten minutes carefully chopping the fresh ingredients and fine tuning the broth. Hopefully Ben’s initial choking fits didn’t hurt the cook’s feelings, but he did express remorse and concern for Ben’s health as he pressed on through the final bites. After a full day of walking, we ride the spice rush home before we fall asleep in our sandals, night time!
Day 3 -- Megan requested a calmer day today. We sleep in until 11 and then have plans that include lunch, maybe a massage, and finding a pool. In a fit of guilt, we stop to take in a local temple: Wat Pra Singh. It’s a standard Thai temple with numerous golden Buddha’s arranged on an alter and growing in size as they sit further and higher above the worshipers. A twist here is that there’s a figure at the alter that is either an incredibly lifelike wax figure or a very old monk lost in meditation with very infrequent involuntary functions (blinking, breathing).
After the temple, we went on a wild goose chase for the perfect lunch. Were at the point of our hunger where only the perfect lunch will do and where we still have enough energy to head down the next street in pursuit of that perfect restaurant. Our stamina fades and ultimately end up in a tourist trap restaurant next to the Hotel Top North which houses our next destination: a pool available to non-guests for 100 baht. Boom! We soak in the sun and, with a cool pool close by, briefly suspend our disdain for the increasingly oppressive heat. Relaxed, cool, and oddly burned as always (how does one end up with sunburned tribal bands around one’s bicep) we head back to Baan Boo Loo for our evening cooking class with Orn.
Night 3 -- Orn presents us with a variety of dishes to choose from, but ultimately we settle on what we hope is easy to cook at home: Green Curry, beef salad, and chicken ka pow. Orn reserves the VIP tuk tuk (1 of 50 in Chaing Mai) to take us shopping for ingredients at her preferred market. We swing by her 11 son’s day camp to bring him along as a shopping aide. The market is Ben's heaven. It’s filled with fried insects, animal parts galore, vegetables of all shapes and size, delicious vats of food that “these make you sick”, along with other crazy sights (bags of frogs). We try some fried grubs which are the texture of a Cheeto with the taste of a beer nut. Orn gives us a tour of the market and explains that the largest insects are added to certain curry pastes in lieu of fish to provide saltiness and flavor.
We tour the meat market then learn about the herbs and veggies needed to make our dishes. Orn introduces us to the 3 types of local basil, several types of chili pepper, and few types of garlic available in the market and tells us the appropriate use of each. After some free time at the market, we head back to BanBooLo and Orn tells us a bit about her family, her plans for expanding the business, and how Thai’s think about schooling.
We take a small break then we learn and chop and pound and grind our ingredients into perfect meal. We have helpers, like Orn's sister, that prep and clean on the side. Ben puts 100% effort into grinding and pounding the best green curry herbs ever (he’s apparently ready for Thai marriage base on his pounding skills). Grinding the curry is about a 30 minute process with a mortar and pestle.
We eventually stir fry our meals under the close supervision of Orn. The food is then brought to our living room for a romantic dinner al fresco. Happy 7 month anniversary to us! Chiang Mai wasn't love at first sight but we came to realize that this is a lovely city with much history and good people.
