A terrible night's sleep was followed by an equally terrible breakfast, save for the excellent boiled eggs courtesy of the prehistoric local chickens.
Breakfast was followed by a 40 minute walk to the elephant riding and bamboo rafting centre.
The elephant riding was mostly terrifying. I had imagined a gentle meander around a forest trail whilst keeping an eye out for interesting animals. Instead Amber and eye cling on for dear life as our rather grumpy elephant walked us along the side of a hill with a significant drop to one side. To be honest, if I was the size of an elephant you could not have paid me to walk along such a path with a bloody great chair on my back carrying a couple of tourists. Not surprised she was grumpy! Anyway, we both agreed that being a passenger on an elephant makes riding camels in the Sahara feel like a walk in the park.
Hard to describe how I felt about the elephants. On the one hand, the elephants were amazing and I'm so glad we had the opportunity to hang out with them. On the other hand, there was something a bit sinister about the way the elephants are treated in this place. Certainly some of the mahouts didn't seem very respectful of their wards and I saw a few elephants both young and old chained up and pacing back and forth in a deeply upsetting way. Personally I think there needs to be respect between humans and animals in order for the two to work together effectively. In this case the relationship seemed to be all about the humans.
The bamboo rafting down the river was good, but sadly we had to enjoy it in the pouring rain. As a result all we got was a rather damp view of the river bank, no wildlife. Also, our raft was perhaps 5cm underwater for the whole journey.
Having saved my trainers from getting wet on the raft by tying the laces together and hanging them round my neck, I was somewhat disappointed that we encountered a Songkran water station on our return to the elephant centre. The revellers threw a few bucketloads of water straight I'm the back of the truck where we were sitting. Let's just say the trainers weren't so dry after that.
We got stuck into a tasty buffet lunch before driving to a nearby waterfall to have a swim. The driver entertained us by backflipping into the deepest pool. I wasn't quite up to the backflips, but I did jump in a few times from the rocks surrounding the pool.
Hundreds of ephemeral insects had all emerged en masse following last night's rain, which gave the waterfall a magical quality. Really beautiful.
To get to our final activity (whitewater rafting) we had to drive a gauntlet of water stations. The girls who swam in the waterfall kept their bikinis on, which caused a real stir with the men on the water stations. For the most part they were too busy gawping to remember to throw the water! Even with thus cunning diversionary tactic we still got a good soaking...or should I say blessing?
The whitewater rafting was the perfect ending for the tour. We were split between two rafts of four plus a guide. Although the water wasn't all that white, the rapids were choppy enough to be really good fun. We were on a raft with Jo and Anna, who had never done it before. They had asked to join us after we'd received the shortest brief ever about whitewater rafting! Needless to say, they loved every second.
The stretches of calm water in between the rapids were nice and relaxing. The sun even came out. Perfect.
With the final activity complete, we set off back to Chiang Mai, which meant even more water stations. We had done some forward planning at the rafting station and bought bin liners to protect our bags, so pretty much everyone was cool with getting wet. The lovely inhabitants of outer Chiang Mai didn't let us down. We arrived back at Nichar's house looking like a pair of drowned rats.
We both felt much better after a quick shower. Nichar took us I'm the back of her Honda Wave scooter (awesome!) to have noodles at a place called 'Kin cen' and I tried two new things. The first was a dry version of tom yum noodles made with green peppercorns. Heaven. The second was a milkshake of milk and condensed milk with purple jelly. Very odd, but very tasty and perfect for combating the heat from the noodles.
Nichar left us after dinner to do some work, so we grabbed a song tao and headed to the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar. Most of the stalls were selling trinkets and fairly terrible souvenirs, so we didn't buy anything. However, I managed to persuade Amber to have a fish pedicure with me at a lovely little establishment called Fish Actually. Basically, your seated above a fish tank full of Garra rufa, which are a type of suckermouth loach, and you lower your feet into the tank so the fish can get to work rasping off all the old dead skin, leaving your feet nice and soft. It's one of the weirdest sensations I've ever experienced. Like really strong pins and needles, or dipping your feet in fizzy water. Amazing! Amber was in hysterics for most of our 15 minutes thanks to the tickling sensation. The fish loved her feet. At one point it looked like she had a fish sock on her right foot. The best bit was that you sit facing out of the shop, so people walking past can see your feet covered in fish through the glass along with the expression on your face!
After the pedicure we sampled some Chiang Mai Spicy Sausage and rotee with banana, condensed milk and chocolate. Then we made our way back.
By some miracle we managed to find a song tao driver willing to take us all the way to Nichar's complex for just 100 baht. Impressive given we barely knew how to say the address.
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