Flipping Tigers, Cuddling Quad Bikes & White Water Rinsing...

Chiang Mai for us was going to be a whirlwind 2 days of extreme adventure to cram in before heading to the islands for the infamous Full Moon party.

The town itself was pretty busy and surprisingly large and the minibus in was not free of incident. Our minibus tapped some pickup and the driver got out and got all agro. He was some American twat sticking his head through the window shouting at our driver things like, “I hope you got a lot of money!” “oh you got a load of Farang in here, this is gunna take a long time”. Imagine this said in the most whiny gaylord American accent, such a pleb. I don’t know the fella but I can honestly say that I hate him.

After his bitchfit he looked at the damage of his car, discovered there was none and drove off, seriously what a pube.

The town center has a vibrant night market where you can buy anything fake; from hang bags, Zippos and model cars to paintings, pornography and batman ninja stars.

 The morning of the first full day arrived and we headed out with our taxi driver, Phillip (not his real name). Phillip would take us around all the sights for the day for just 6 squids and he was a proper LAD. Although he never spoke to us I can just tell he was a proper LAD.

First stop was the local Tiger Kingdom. You know the typical sort of place where you walk into an enclosure full of tigers, hug them, get a picture and leave. No biggie, just your usual tiger kingdom – get over it.

Next the Snake Zoo come Snake show place. Here mental little Thai geezers would put snakes in their mouths, try and get snakes to bites their faces and lose control of snakes so that they scurried into the crowd. Here you can see the funny buggers have decided to point the snakes head at my nob, those guys, funny!

The best part by miles was the bloke on the microphone during the show. He controlled the music (The Final Countdown instrumental version) and would repeat the phrase “most danger snake in Asia” approximately 90 times in an MC Neat style voice.

After the show we had the opportunity to walk around their zoo, which included more snakes, a monkey who charged at us until he hit his noggin on the cage and rabbits and guinea pigs.

Next on the tour, quad bikes through the jungle on an off road track. Ok no problem. So the lady said to us,

“30 minutes or one hour?” - one hour obvs!

“Easy, medium or hard” - erm.. hard, cheers

“what size engine” – yeah will take the biggest, 450cc please.

We headed off and after 5 minutes I had flip it and smashed my arm up using the “if in trouble, floor it” tactic whilst ascending a steep rocking hill.

Driving for another hour and 15 minutes due to the generous quad bike guys proved tricky as what can only be described as a well dangerous path and blood falling from my arm was a less than pedestrian excursion. Awesome, nether the less.

The next day promised to be even more action packed. We bandaged up my arm and were picked up before zooming off to range of activities set up by the tour company. First on list wasn’t even on the list. For some reason the driver stopped at an orchid farm and said “20 minute”.

That is literally all he said. Have you ever spent 20 minutes in a section of a garden center where they only have one type of plant? Enormous yawnfest… but hang on, what’s this? A butterfly farm in the corner – this I had to see.

Jack said you can judge a farm on the quality and quantity of its produce. We saw 3 poo coloured moths!

We were taken to a village where people with long necks live, basically a zoo for humans. I was repulsed.

Following that tragic waste of time, we drove through some sort of jungle roads until we reached base camp, served some Pad Thai and we jumped on an elephant, as you do. We had to stand on a platform and mount it, except n no one said how, so I just stepped on his head and sat on the seat. We named him Jonno and off we went.

Now I don’t want to knock Jonno seeing as I was sitting on his back and lolling but come on bruv, try and walk a bit a flatter. I really thought we were going to fall out of the seat and get trampled all over. There was also the awkward moment where Jonno walked unaided to a shack where a man appeared and pointed a cup on the end of a stick at us. We both looked at each other and didn’t know what was going on. The man pointed at a sign that said “SUGAR CA-NES 50B”, finally it all became clear and I said to the man, “no thanks we don’t want any sugar cane, I’m not hungry” The bloke looked at me like I was an idiot and I turned around. Then Jack had a revelation, “hang on, is the sugar cane supposed to be for the elephant” “oh yeah, that makes more sense”. We put money in the cup and gave Jonno the canes, he ruddy loved them.

We ditched Jonno and went in the jungle on a trek with our group, two English lads, a German couple and bunch of Chineso’s. The walk wasn’t long, well it shouldn’t have been long but my Christ those Chineso’s are slow, urgh.

On the way there were groups walking past on the way down. After one group passed Jack had something to say:

J “That lad had a funny bandage on”

T “Huh? What bloke?”

J “that bloke, just walked past… with the bandage… had a bottle of water”

T “Jack!” I looked at him with a concerned face

J “What?”

T “Jack… that wasn’t a bandage. That was a fake arm… with a hook on the end… holding a bottle of water”

J “Are you sure?”

T “Yes, I am definitely sure”

When we got to the waterfall it was a bit ordinary. This is where we decided that we can add waterfalls to the list of things we’ve seen enough of. Also on the list are temples, shrines and morons.

Now for a quick game of Where’s Tristan!

The day’s main event was up next, white water rafting. We got in the raft and teamed with the other English guys, both us and them wanted to avoid being grouped with the slow Chineso’s. Actually I’ve just realized we spent all day with these English blokes but they never asked our names, we didn’t ask theirs; perfect.

Heading down river, our guide was a little bit eccentric. Singing an incredibly annoying tune and striking up odd conversation for any situation, let alone whilst gliding down rocks and what not. The odd topics included the film Rambo 4, the Mayan end of the world, The Decepticons and the threat of nuclear war from Iran, all in broken English.

Jack asked the guy how many people have fallen in the water, he replied with “everyone”. Moments later we went over a mini water cliff sideways and flipped straight over. I’m still not sure if it was deliberate or accidental but it hurt so much as my body got dragged across some fairly pointy rocks and my bandage got ripped clean off. I was able to climb on top of the up turned raft whilst the guide laughed so hard I thought he might die. Then the chineso’s strolled past.

We hopped onto a bamboo raft and finished off down the strip of the river and that was Chiang Mai, loved it.

Typical video summary:

 

So we went south for a mini stay in Bangkok again where we had enough time to hang out with some Girls Next Door and have a drink with Sean Connery.

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