Traveling

Traveling is like...

Sure I miss home. Did you guys know it gets boring to travel? Actually I think I have worked it out into a decent analogy. Traveling is like a relationship- you know how at first it's all amazing and your head is in the clouds and you are astounded at all the little things about the person you have started dating? Then after a while those little things get annoying... and you have to work at it to keep it amazing... Ya that's it. If you work just a bit at your relationship you will get tons back- same goes for traveling. Needless to say, if traveling was my boyfriend, I would've been dumped a long time ago! But now with India on the horizon, I hope that 'honeymoon period' will reappear.
At Christmas I talked about it with Fab and Chantal- just how I wasn't so interested in doing the main backpacking circuit around SE Asia- I know you can always go off the beaten track- but there are still always people around.
Just one example:
You guys remember the trekking I did in Burma- now that was awesome. I came to Chiang Mai to break in my trekking boots, so I signed up for a 2 day trek.
Here goes:
Highlights: 1) Runni (Miss Thailand)
2) Pretending to speak Burmese with the guide at the waterfall
3) Riding on the roof of the truck
4) Bamboo rafting
First off, our trekking guide was a lady boy. He called himself Miss Thailand. Now, those of you who have been to Thailand will find this ridiculously funny. Right away, I knew this was not going to be trek the way I define it. (Lady boys are guys who just, well, act like ladies, I guess would be the easiest way to explain this.. he had long nails and nice hair and danced and sang all the time).

We were suppoed to leave the guest house at 9- we got into our pickup at 1015. We were going to a market to get some stuff to eat along the way- the market was basically a 7/11 without the large sign! He said pick up some beer and pringles if you like... I got some peanut brittle and yogurt and oranges- what the hell do I know? (I know I can make friends with peanut brittle)

So we continued on to the elephant trekking. Have any of you ever done the elephant ride at Parc Safari? This was "same same but different". The guides don't have sticks with spikes on the end at parc safari, but everything else was similar. I wasn't sure I wanted to do the trek, but when I said I didn't they said ok we will take off 100bhat and you can just walk around instead. It just sounded not as good as elephant trekking. I should've skipped it. The guy sitting on the head of our elephant kept yelling at him and the girl I was with was like "jeez his ears are big enough, you don't have to yell!" I got tons of elephant slobber on me, bc you could feed them banana so he would fling his trunk on top of his head to get the food- I was fine with the slobber, it dried and crusted really quickly ;)
The part that hurt my soul was the yelling and the spike. I will never ever do it again.

After the elephants we started our actual trek. we ended up waiting for the guide, Runni. He was 'tired'. We hadn't even started. He showed us this really cool plant that recoils when you touch it- I'm not sure why but I had a lot of fun touching all the plants and watching them move. We walked for about 1 hr to a waterfall- it was quite difficult uphill walking so I was getting a little pumped-
Got to the waterfall and cleaned up a bit, we only had 30 min walk to the village. Only 1.5 hrs of trekking on atrekking trip. Ah well. I am in Thailand where everything is much easier right?
Found out it was Runni's (Miss Thailand) 29th bday that day, so we decided to have a little celebration in the village.

Got to the village and no one was around. Forty families of 10 lived there, but there wasn't a soul around. And we were staying in a hut that was built esp for us, the tour group. Yuck. So it wasn't as authentic as I thought it might be. Again, where do I think I am? It was fun tho, because everyone I was with was really into it, it was their first trekking trip so that was nice. We explored the village and I finally got rid of the books and crayons I've been lugging around since Burma. The kids just expected them- we saw more tourists staying in the village too. We decided to go back to our 'villa' bc Runni was making dinner for us.
Dinner was fabulous! Whata great cook! We saw a couple more tribe people but they only showed up to sell us things and then left when we weren't interested. Theygots ta make a livin too, I guess.
One guy showed up and stuck around tho. He brought the rice whisky- I actually quite like it. It was not as strong as Laolao. Runni proceeded to get quite drunk and talk about his boyfriend in holland and hit on the one guy in our group. He also did these cute little shows for us, starting off a skit and then finishing off in a song- he sang I Will Survive and American Dream and this Sexy Naughty Bitchy song I think he made up. I really liked him and thought he was hilarious, but I am not sure everyone else was as happy as i was to watch the drag show.
After Miss Thailand had finished telling me why she loves Miss America and the scandal that surrounds her (?) I decided it was time for bed. Again, I love sleeping in mosquito nets- what do you think Chuck?

Got up around 9 to pigs grunting and cocks crowing and some guy chopping trees in the yard. If only every morning could be this way. It's so peaceful and beautiful and good for the soul, you know?

We had breakfast and headed out trekking again- this time going for 2 hrs before finishing at another waterfall and getting the truck to lunch and bamboo rafting. There was another guide at the waterfall and he was studying smthg so I asked him what it was. "Thai". And I said, well where are you from and he said "Burma". Well, wasn't I tickled pink! So I proceeded to bombard him with my Burmese (Hello!, Please, Thank you, How much? I'm full. 1, 2, 3, 4... Do you have a room?). I don't think he was impressed. He did think it was strange that i knew so much about Aung Ang Suu Kyi- At least I got a bit of my Burma fix !

We walked for about 5 min to the truck.. Runni was riding on the roof of the truck so I went up too- I have wanted to do that since Burma (where women are not allowed to ride on the roof- have feet above mens heads). That was great, both of us squealing as we went along the winding roads and ducked under the tree branches.

Got to the bamboo rafting and i had heard that it was kinda boring and you just go thru stagnant water and I was quite sick of gross water from tubing in Vang Vieng- anyhow, it was all I really wanted to do on the trek so i was still a little excIted. I took the raft with the Dutch couple and Runni jumped on ours- yay! He was bambooing in the front and the Dutch guy in the back- and Runni screamed the whole time! It was hilarious! He had no idea what he was doing , it seemed, and so we were constantly headed for rocks and trees- and there was a bit of white water! All in all it was great fun! I thought I could sit in the middle and not get too wet, but you go down a little rapid and get wet up past your waist- Runni was squealing louder than anyone and all the Thai thought he was hilarious! Took the truck back to Chiang Mai- I have taken to wrapping my head in a scarf and wearing my sunglasses during open air travel (do as the locals do) so all the Thais we passed on the road thought this was hilarious - I felt like Miss Thailand!

So it was all good fun, but a little misleading in the trekking factor!

I leave Chiang Mai tonite for Bangkok, on the bus. I am cultivating my masochistic side I think. ;)

This is the last blog til India.... I'm sure i will have many stories for you soon enough.

posted by jjoollee @ 6:02 AM