Chiang Mai - Kingdom of Lanna

14 Hours on the train, and i can tell you we wont be doing that again in a hurry!!! First night here and i ordered a chicken soup (i'd tried it before and it wasnt so hot), what you find out pretty quick is that food can vary from restaurant to restaurant, its never the same. Sooo... i've got my chicken soup, tasting it yummy as... about 1/4 way thru it becames so fuckin hot i cant stand it, nearly have fit at table, water and loads of it etc... mike sitting there laughing, yes so funny, i'd eaten a green pepper which apparrently your suppose to throw out. So i cant eat it anymore, mike has it, my turn to laugh, he starts sweating, gulps of air, water etc... i'm pissing myself laughing... Was hotter than he thought!!! Lesson learnt.

Hired a scooter today, it was great. Chiang Mai is a small little city and the old part is really easy to find your way around. We visited the cultural muesum, it was all about the history and culture of chiang mai. It was very interesting. Then we found a beautiful park in the middle of the old city, so we stopped to have a look around. Mike tried some street vendors dried fish, yuk yuk yuk... it stunk!!! We came across some old guys playing what was like NZ happy sac game, but they use a bigger cane type ball, and they have to kick it high into a 3 side triangle net. It was great to watch. Late evening was here before we knew it so we strolled on thru the night bazaar. Massive amounts of street stalls with everything from t-shirts, jandals, keyrings, scarfs etc... A shoppers paradise.

A new day and we had a 1 day trip planned. First was to visit an orchid farm, that was very interesting, the orchids grow just hanging there, not in the ground like i thought. Then we visited a thai village, it consisted of 6 different tribes, most orginated from burma. The one that got me the most was the long neck tribe, they wear brass rings around their necks and once they put them on they never, NEVER, take them off. These brass rings also weigh up to 6 kg, and even the little girls wear them. The little girl in the picture is 9 years old, and they go to work with their parents in the jungle and feilds as young as 6. It made me very sad. They are warn to protect their necks against tiger attacks, hopefully by that time one of the men have come to save you. Fingers crossed a... There was also the long ear tribe, they have really long earrings in their ears, massive holes, and i have no idea why!!!

We then did a small walk thru the paddy fields and came to the elephant trek, while it was great to ride the elephants, it was very hot and it wasnt thru the jungle as we were told. Still how many people get to ride the elephants a!!! Cant complain.

We then went to a beautiful waterfall, at first Mike and I were the only ones that got in. It was fantastic, so refreshing... then we got joined by 2 others, it was a blast, the others in our group sure did miss out on that one. White water rafting next, our day was just jam packed. Mike's first turn and he loved it. Only a level 2 but shit, i can now say i've been rafting in Thailand, not only white water either, we changed onto traditional bamboo rafts, and paddled further down the river. It was heaps of fun and i loved it.