Alan & Dianne's Travels: Stage 4

Today we decided to make the obligatory contribution to the local economy: we booked an excursion! This was a day trip, with an early start and an early evening finish so we were up at 5:30, breakfast at 6:30 and a car to take us to Chiang Mai for an 8:00 am start. There was a bit of hassle from then on which involved a wait, another car, pick up someone else at a hotel, drive to another office, the a further wait....then off we set, well, that is until the driver had to stop for petrol after only 10 minutes! So, off we set, eventually. The trip was to the Northern mountains so it took us about an hour to get there; we were in a mini-bus with 8 others - a French couple, two Swiss ladies and two couples from Belfast - which took about an hour to arrive at the first stop: the elephants. The 'trek' was in three stages, first on the back of elephants through a jungle trail, the second a walk up the mountain side and the final leg was a bamboo raft sail down the mountain river to meet the minibus.

So, the elephants: this was typical of the elephant rides you see everywhere. It was a rather large camp/village of local people and, I guess, 20 families will be depending on the dozen or so elephants for their economic survival - Mahouts, the vendors selling trinkets, food and drink, the photographers, etc. We had to wait for our ride so we took some photos of the 'unemployed' elephants, including on only a few months old.

The ride was OK but there was a distinct lack of any wildlife in the forest, not even the sound of a bird, which I found strange, but I assume it was too hot for wild creatures to be out, either that or there are too many tourists 'infesting' the area. I think we were on the elephant for about an hour or so during which time he, the elephant, insisted we fed him copious amounts of sugar cane!

We then set off for our walk up the mountain where the trail was much narrower taking us along paths beside irrigation canals that took water down to flood the paddy fields - a bit like the levada walks in Madeira. At this time of the day, midday, it was hot so the climb was a little taxing but we stopped off at a remote village in the mountains where a small tribe of the long-necked women live in exile from Burma. We paid to enter the village where we could take photographs and buy some of their craftwork. Making the necks of the women longer has been practice by the tribe since the 11th century and still continues with girls wearing the extending rings from the age of 5 to 15. In fact the neck is not extended but the rib cage is collapsed but the rings giving the impression that neck is longer. We took some photos and bought a few things - it all helps the economy!

We then continued up the path to, which became much steeper for a while before we came across a rather impressive waterfall. Some brave folk, including Dianne, took to the water but it was freezing so I declined!

The last stage of the trek was the return to the bottom of the mountain. This was achieve on a bamboo raft. We walked again to the bamboo 'port' where we left all our valuables, including cameras, with our tour guide and then climbed on the raft, 4 to a raft, and then the boatman punted us down stream. Mostly gentle water but lots of rapids too, though not what you would call 'white water' rapids. Nevertheless it was not that comfortable, and very wet.

At the end of the trip we arrived at another village, no doubt the home of the boatmen, where we could get drinks and food, clean up and attempt to get dry before setting off to Chiang Mai and, eventually, our hotel.

We dined al fresco in the hotel on pasta and a cold bottle of Pinot Grigio.