Dan and i just came back from a 2 day trekking tour. It was pretty fun - god I still feel like i'm on the awful "bus" ride - it's basically a truck with seats built in the back of it, with a canopy covering us - and the roads are bumpy as hell- can't fall asleep!!!! Got to hang on for life!
There were only 4 of us on the tour - Dan and I, and a guy named Matt (from Pennsylvania) and another guy from Australia, Anthony. On the trek, we drove an hour away from town (Chiang Mai) and hiked up and down a mountain for about 2 hours. It was a great workout! Then we arrived at a village, where it is very primitive.
We got to live like these villagers live - it was amazing. The village consisted of about 10 families, and maybe 8 huts made from bamboo. There were many roosters, hens, chickadees, few pigs, and many dogs around. The poor dogs all looked starved and unhealthy. They always itched themselves, and they had patches of skin showing. Awww.
It was a neat experience seeing how these families lived. They basically collect, hunt and gather food for themselves and for the urban cities (eg. such as Chiang Mai). Our tour guide cooked up an amazing thai dinner for us, and afterwards, we all paid the village women to give us thai massages. Afterwards, we walked around the small village talking to other tourists and watching the cute thai kids play. One of the older thai kids came and sat with us, and played tunes on his guitar. He was amazingly talented, as he is able to pick up tunes on his guitar by ear. He learned english from all the tourists that come and visit his home - and he's 17! We also star gazed. I have never ever in my life seen so many stars- it was a blanket of stars - so amazing! I'm sorry we couldn't get pictures of that, the camera doesn't work that far!
We slept in a hut that was attached to the home. Our room, I assume, was only for tourists. It consisted of about 10 mats, with misquito nets above them. They were hard, but Dan says he slept awesome...and I slept ok...until the darn roosters woke us up at 5:30AM. Ugh!
At 8am, we woke up and our tour guide, SuTim, made us breakfast (toast, eggs, hot chocolate and tea). They are big on processed carbs (white rice, white bread) and high fat foods here - I think I'm gaining a bit of a tummy!!! It's hard to NOT eat the food here though, it's amazing!!!! Wait until we get to Hong Kong- oh man, the food there is going to be incredible!!!
After breaky, we went on an elephant ride. Anthony and Matt rode on the first elephant, and we rode on the 2nd one, which was the mother of the first elephant. Her name was Jon, which means Moon in Thai. The ride was okay...the most exciting part was when a water buffalo came into town, and the dogs started surrounding him and freaked out at him. Then the villager women came and threw rocks at it, and the elephants started to freak out as well. They started vibrating/purring (whatever elephants do to intimidate)...I was freaked out b/c I wasn't sure what the elephants would do next- Charge?! The poor unwelcomed buffalo went on it's way, and swam up the river. After that, things were peaceful again. We have pictures of this...just you wait and see! After the ride, we got to feed the elephants bananas - so cute!
After the feeding, we then went on a Bamboo Raft ride for about 1.5 hours. It's so smart. The villagers gather bamboo, make them into a raft, and have us tourists ship it down the river - so they are making money for sending bamboo AND get paid by the tourists to do so! Smart!!! Today was not as physically eventful, but yet I was so hungry!!! I ate so much, I'm going for a run pretty soon around here, in Chiang Mai.
3 days ago (Monday), Dan and I took a 2 hour Muay Thai (Thai boxing) class for 400 baht each. It was AMAZING!!!! Omg, we have not had a workout that intense since forever. The instructor got us to "warm up" by skipping rope (since we didn't have our runners we couldn't run laps), do lots of ab workouts, bounce on loose car tires (to help us with stance) and taught us basic techniques. It is so different from karate- everything seems almost opposite. It was hard for me at first. For example, in karate, the stances are low and stable, but in muay thai, you have to be up on the balls of your feet- always! Even when kicking! Dan and I trained for about 2.5 hours (we definitely got our money's worth!), while the instructor yelled commands at us. He is a 56 year old man, in good shape! There were other muay thai regular students there- including cute kids. We have pictures of this as well. Dan and I are still sore from the workout today...no wonder those muay thai fighters get in shape so fast!!!!! They are amazingly fit - even the little kids. You can see every single definition of muscle - it's insane!
Anyways, better go - will upload pictures once our camera starts to get full again.
Love Roz and Dan
There were only 4 of us on the tour - Dan and I, and a guy named Matt (from Pennsylvania) and another guy from Australia, Anthony. On the trek, we drove an hour away from town (Chiang Mai) and hiked up and down a mountain for about 2 hours. It was a great workout! Then we arrived at a village, where it is very primitive.
We got to live like these villagers live - it was amazing. The village consisted of about 10 families, and maybe 8 huts made from bamboo. There were many roosters, hens, chickadees, few pigs, and many dogs around. The poor dogs all looked starved and unhealthy. They always itched themselves, and they had patches of skin showing. Awww.
It was a neat experience seeing how these families lived. They basically collect, hunt and gather food for themselves and for the urban cities (eg. such as Chiang Mai). Our tour guide cooked up an amazing thai dinner for us, and afterwards, we all paid the village women to give us thai massages. Afterwards, we walked around the small village talking to other tourists and watching the cute thai kids play. One of the older thai kids came and sat with us, and played tunes on his guitar. He was amazingly talented, as he is able to pick up tunes on his guitar by ear. He learned english from all the tourists that come and visit his home - and he's 17! We also star gazed. I have never ever in my life seen so many stars- it was a blanket of stars - so amazing! I'm sorry we couldn't get pictures of that, the camera doesn't work that far!
We slept in a hut that was attached to the home. Our room, I assume, was only for tourists. It consisted of about 10 mats, with misquito nets above them. They were hard, but Dan says he slept awesome...and I slept ok...until the darn roosters woke us up at 5:30AM. Ugh!
At 8am, we woke up and our tour guide, SuTim, made us breakfast (toast, eggs, hot chocolate and tea). They are big on processed carbs (white rice, white bread) and high fat foods here - I think I'm gaining a bit of a tummy!!! It's hard to NOT eat the food here though, it's amazing!!!! Wait until we get to Hong Kong- oh man, the food there is going to be incredible!!!
After breaky, we went on an elephant ride. Anthony and Matt rode on the first elephant, and we rode on the 2nd one, which was the mother of the first elephant. Her name was Jon, which means Moon in Thai. The ride was okay...the most exciting part was when a water buffalo came into town, and the dogs started surrounding him and freaked out at him. Then the villager women came and threw rocks at it, and the elephants started to freak out as well. They started vibrating/purring (whatever elephants do to intimidate)...I was freaked out b/c I wasn't sure what the elephants would do next- Charge?! The poor unwelcomed buffalo went on it's way, and swam up the river. After that, things were peaceful again. We have pictures of this...just you wait and see! After the ride, we got to feed the elephants bananas - so cute!
After the feeding, we then went on a Bamboo Raft ride for about 1.5 hours. It's so smart. The villagers gather bamboo, make them into a raft, and have us tourists ship it down the river - so they are making money for sending bamboo AND get paid by the tourists to do so! Smart!!! Today was not as physically eventful, but yet I was so hungry!!! I ate so much, I'm going for a run pretty soon around here, in Chiang Mai.
3 days ago (Monday), Dan and I took a 2 hour Muay Thai (Thai boxing) class for 400 baht each. It was AMAZING!!!! Omg, we have not had a workout that intense since forever. The instructor got us to "warm up" by skipping rope (since we didn't have our runners we couldn't run laps), do lots of ab workouts, bounce on loose car tires (to help us with stance) and taught us basic techniques. It is so different from karate- everything seems almost opposite. It was hard for me at first. For example, in karate, the stances are low and stable, but in muay thai, you have to be up on the balls of your feet- always! Even when kicking! Dan and I trained for about 2.5 hours (we definitely got our money's worth!), while the instructor yelled commands at us. He is a 56 year old man, in good shape! There were other muay thai regular students there- including cute kids. We have pictures of this as well. Dan and I are still sore from the workout today...no wonder those muay thai fighters get in shape so fast!!!!! They are amazingly fit - even the little kids. You can see every single definition of muscle - it's insane!
Anyways, better go - will upload pictures once our camera starts to get full again.
Love Roz and Dan
posted by Dan&Roz @ 2:34 AM
1 Comments:
At 10:17 AM,
Anonymous said…
Yay! Sounds like fun, we wanted to go to Chiang Mai but never got around to it, so I will have to see your pictures! The Muay Thai sounds awesome! There were a couple bars where they let foreigners (us) hop in the ring and duke it out, maybe you will get your chance....
Stay safe, have fuN!
Michelle
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