Day 17 ... Chang Mai

After a wonderful sleep we woke up about 8 when the attendants were going around putting everyone up for breakfast. We didn't have breakfast ouselves as we both had nibbles and said we would wait until getting into Chang Mai itself.

 

We got off at our final stop Chang Mai where we grouped together with everyone that was wearing an 'Unseen Travel' sticker and off we headed to our guest house .... The Chang Mai Inn.

 

The guest house was quite nice. Clean rooms, a warm shower and drinks down in the common area. Both of us went for a shower as we were feeling really bad after almost 3 days of traveling and we got our laundry done as well in preparation for the trekking.

The entire trekking group had to meet downstairs at 5 to meet our guide and to find out the details of the trekking.

 

We headed for a brief walk around the centre of Chang Mai itself to see some of the local sights and sounds. We had lunch in a lovely little restaurant just inside the old moat and wall (used as a defense against invasions of past centuries). We stuck to some of the reliable dishes as usual. Fried rice with chicken for me, and sweet and sour chicken with rice and tofu for Caroline

 

At 5 we met some of the trekking group downstairs along with our guide Mr Sam! From our guest house there was Jessica, Annika and Maria all from Canada as well as David from Belgium.

Mr Sam explained what was entailed in the trekking. Day 1 we would go elephant riding in the morning. Have lunch in the town and then start trekking to our first home stay house in the jungle. Day 2 we would set of trekking in the morning again, have lunch in the middle of the jungle and spend the afternoon trekking before staying in a 'Karen' Hill tribe village. Day 3 would be trekking in the morning, then going back to the town/village and going bamboo rafting in the afternoon before being dropped back into Chang Mai. We agreed to head off in the morning about 9 or so and off Mr Sam went.

 

 We still had most of the evening free so we asked the reception staff if there was anything we could do that evening and luckily enough because it was Sunday evening there was a huge night market on in the middle of town.

 

Off we headed to the night market and it was like walking into Koh San Road again ... well a more local Koh San road, there was food everywhere and hundreds of stalls selling everything, clothing, paintings, carvings, jewellery as well as many more! I bought myself a few nik-naks ... oh and a cowboy type hat for trekking! Well it was a good buy at the time!

 

I also got to try some of the food. I got a pancake thing with egg, banana and chocolate and it was gorgeous.... I only wish I knew what it was called! We grabbed a tuk-tuk back to the guesthouse and went to bed early .... in preparation for the trekking.