Travel Blog: Day 170

My train to Chiang Mai ran late making the journey 17 hours instead of 14. Once I got there I explored the city on foot for a couple days. I found some geocaches and also went to the Chiang Mai women’s prison for my first Thai massage. Some of the women (the not too bad ones that will be released within the following 6 months) are given the chance to earn themselves some money by either giving massages or working in the prison’s restaurant. I mostly enjoyed my 1.5 hours massage (about 6 Euro). It hurt only a few times, and then mostly because I am everything but flexible. The following day I rented a scooter and went to the Doi Suthep temple. This place was full of tourists and did therefore not emit the quiet atmosphere one would expect. A few kilometers past the temple was the royal winter palace where I took a stroll through the garden.

My main activity in the Chiang Mai area was then a two day hike through the rain forest, including elephant riding and whitewater rafting. There were 12 people in my group and we were driven into the mountains where we the elephant riding was the first point on the agenda. I did not really enjoy it. The first 5 minutes were interesting but after that I just wanted it to be over. The poor things appeared drugged to me. When we were off the elephants we really started the hike – about 3 hours uphill in 35 degrees and really high humidity. Especially a slightly overweighed American couple had to struggle severely. But we made it to the top where we were shown our little hut containing of a single room sleeping 12 (just mattresses on the floor with a mosquito net for every two). The hut was on the edge of the mountain and also had a big patio from where we had a wonderful view over the valley. We were fed a pretty tasty meal and afterwards played some games with our tour guide and just talked till everybody was tired (which didn’t take long).

The next day after breakfast we started our descent which was a lot easier than the way up (surprise!). After about two hours of walking we arrived at the rafting place and split up in smaller groups to man the boats. Since it was almost the end of the dry season the water in the river was very low and the biggest challenge was not to get stuck. It was still fun but there was hardly any ‘whitewater’. After this we had a short ride in a bamboo float which our rafting guide nicknamed bamboo submarine – luckily I was the one standing in front steering the thing with a long pole while the others had to sit down….the bamboo float floated a few centimeters underneath the water so everybody was basically sitting in a puddle. After that we got fed some dinner and were driven back to Chiang Mai. It was a fun tour with fun people.

The same evening I boarded a plane that took me back to Bangkok where I stayed for another 3 days. Most of my time there I spent reading my book but I also did some geocaching, went to see the Grand Palace and went to the medical/forensic museum at the hospital. The latter was quite interesting…and gross. They had samples of all kinds of human parts floating in formaldehyde. While it was interesting to see how artificial heart valves work, it was shocking to see distorted babies on display. I remember some samples of Siamese twins and a baby with its intestines growing outside of its body. The forensic part of the exhibition showed hundreds of skulls, hearts, livers, lungs and whatnot – each with your choice of burning wounds, stabbing wounds, shooting wounds and so on. You get the picture.

Ok, that is it for today. I flew back from Bangkok to Sydney to continue my Australian adventure but I will tell you about it another day.