Mark found a number of helpful locals who got him organized for bait and fishing techniques. He and Chloe fished a lot in the Ping River behind the guesthouse, Thankfully he did not catch anything - the river was disgustingly dirty. Sarah also visited some of the 'factories' (they seemed to be more big shops where they made things) and watched paper, silk and umbrellas being made.

We visited Wat Phrasing and Wat Chediuang, two of the many Buddhist temples here in Chiang Mai. We have seen many Buddhist Monks in Thailand - actually, with their orange robes, they're hard to miss. One special event we attended was 'Monk Chat' where we got to speak to a Monk. It was held in Wat Suendoc, located on the grounds of the university with the impossibly long name. The Monk could practice his English and we could learn a bit about Buddhism. Buddhism is intriguing. It seems more like a philosophy of tolerance than a religion. 

Of course, it was Kai and the others in the group that made the trek so fun. The two day and three day trekking groups traveled together on the first day, but then pared down to 11 of us for the last two days. Sue and Dave were from England. Aartie, Gerard and Ed were from Holland. Front row - Mark, Heather, Aartie, Chloe (look at her collection of sticks), Kai. Back row - Sarah, Gerard, Ed, Dave, Sue.  

We visited four hill tribe villages during the trek - Hwang (Meo), two Lahu, and Akha. These are Meo kids hamming it up for the camera. While the villages we visited were in the hills in relatively desolate locations, there are about 750,000 hill tribe people in Thailand according to the 2000 census. The hill tribes each have their own language, dress, religious beliefs, and customs. The Lahu and Akha came from Tibet over the last few hundred years. I could not find where the Hwang came from, but they are currently located throughout south China, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Burma. 

All tribes used slash and burn agriculture. When the land is exhausted from farming, they move on to a new spot - sometimes even vacating an entire village to move to a new area. 750,000 people slashing and burning is obviously not sustainable.

The second day passed quickly - 5 km of trails with some steep downhill parts and a cool waterfall to shower in. We stayed overnight at the elephant camp. On our third and last day, we got to ride elephants for an hour. Elephants are surprisingly graceful for their size. Each step was gently taken as we climbed some very steep and narrow trails. The seats on the elephants must be about 3 metres off the ground, so every movement of the elephant was magnified in the seat. We swayed quite a bit from side to side, and pitched up and down. It was fun but not a very comfortable ride - the kind of ride we only need to do once. After the elephants, we split the group into two rubber rafts for a refreshing paddle down the Mae Tang river. Before returning to Chiang Mai, we visited the Butterfly farm, Orchid farm.

We had another two days in Chiang Mai before leaving. We visited the excellent Tribal Museum and learned about the Hill Tribes. Sarah and Heather had final fittings for their new silk dresses. (You-know-who still doesn't wear dresses.) The kids had charcoal drawings done of them which I look forward to enjoying on our return. We also had a last lunch at Kaosoi Islam, my favourite hole in the wall restaurant. We had one Kao Soi (a soup with noodles, chicken or beef and spices in a coconut broth), 70 satay chicken and beef sticks, and 7 freshly squeezed lemon juices for less than $8Cdn. The kid's favourite was bananas rotee from a food cart - this is a rotee (sort of a crepe) filled with bananas, sugar and condensed milk. They are all set to start a food cart business next year at home when we return.  

Our return trip to Bangkok was a bit of a disaster. Following our great but cold (due to air conditioning) sleeper trip up,  we thought we would try a fan cooled sleeper going back. For some reason that we did not understand, we had to ride in what was really an uncomfortable subway car for the first two hours of the trip - but at least we were one of the first on, so we got seats. Then we switched to a very hot sleeper car for the rest of the trip. Sarah and the girls got stuck next to some particularly objectionable backpackers who were noisy till quite late - despite being repeatedly asked to be quiet. 

However, all was not bad. One of the places that we wanted to visit was Ayutthaya, the capital of Thailand before it was sacked by Burma in 1767. When we realized our train stopped there on its way to Bangkok, we got off early. Go to Ayutthaya.