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What a fun-filled adventure weekend spent in Chiang Mai!

Chiang Mai is the largest northern city in Thailand, near the borders of Laos and Burma. The area is well-known for it’s incredible jungle landscapes. I spent the entire weekend feeling like I was in the movie, Avatar. The feeling came not just from being surrounded by never-ending stretches of jungle, but also the feeling of having an out of body experience. I almost could not believe this was my life. It had to be a dream! Take a look at this picture and you’ll be able to feel what I felt. This picture says it all:

High-flying adventures were the order of the day at Jungle Flight. Situated in the jungle mountains, this adult playground spans 34 platforms and covers a large chunk of land. The longest zip line was 130m (about 430ft). The “divine trees” as they are called, were each an average of 150 years old and 100m tall.

I also learned a new English word: abseil. Abseiling is when you sit back in your harness, the rope secured to the line above, but instead of zip lining across from platform to platform, you are dropped directly beneath you to a lower platform. To use in a sentence: The trip ended with a 40m drop that we had to abseil (see picture).

The guides and zip wire crew were like monkeys in the way they would quickly connect to the zip line, leap, and slide across to the next platform. Then as one crew member prepared us for our zip ride, the others were already zipping off again to get the next station ready. Sometimes they would hang upside down as they zipped across; they were really entertaining.

The Thais (and maybe Asia?) have a weird thing with hair in communal places. When I went to a water park, everyone had to rent and wear a swim cap. Then at the zip line, they first made each of us put on a hospital-style hair net before putting on the helmets.

The scenery here was amazing. Dense, lush jungle set against a mountain backdrop. Tall trees, soft bird calls, occasional sounds of water bubbling in the creek; the entire area oozed adventure and relaxation at the same time.

The elevation of 1000m above sea level is impressive for Thailand, but weak by Colorado standards. The higher elevation and being in the northern part of Thailand also contributed to a little cooler climate, a nice respite from the constant heat.

Joining me on the adventure was a nice Kiwi (New Zealander) and a group of Chinese young adults from Shanghai. The Kiwi and I swapped travel tales like a couple of old hands. I told the Chinese that I would be moving to Nanjing, and they happily invited me to Shanghai to have dinner. We exchanged our contact info and I will take them up on the offer! Shanghai is about 1 and ½ hours away from Nanjing by bullet train, according to my new Chinese friends.

The next day I went on an all-day trek with a nice couple from Spain (got to practice my rusty old Spanish skills!). The trek involved hiking, elephant riding, more hiking, swimming in a waterfall, lunch, a visit to an orchid farm, and white-water rafting.

I hiked in my reasonably expensive Gander Mountain hiking boots (this pair of boots, by the way, has touched mud in the rainforests of Brazil, has strolled the streets of Melbourne, Paris, and Copenhagen, and has climbed mountains in Colorado and Norway!).

The Thai tour guide, on the other hand, did the entire hike in flip-flops! This was over slippery rocks, through mud, etc., and I was the only one who fell into the stream to get my boots wet. The guide didn’t so much as stumble!

Elephant-ride: what a trip! As you might imagine, this part of the adventure was unlike anything I’ve experienced. Horse-back riding doesn’t come close. For one, horses are much faster. But the view on an elephant, and feeling like an insignificant weight on the large animal…very different. At times, I wondered if the elephant even knew I was sitting on its back! The Spaniards elephant was very hungry and kept munching on any nearby leaves it could get its trunk on.

What can I say about white-water rafting? I’ll tell you this much: driving through the jungle is fun, but rafting through the jungle is even more fun! I think it helps that the raft is open air and there is no ceiling, whereas in the van or truck, driving through the jungle, the view is limited to what can be seen out the windows. This part of the trip was very wet! The Spanish couple admitted that this would be their first time rafting. Made me a bit nervous, but they did ok and said they had lots of fun getting tossed around by the dips and twists of the river current. Our Thai guide for the rafting portion was funny and kept warning us to beware of crocodiles (we knew there were no crocodiles!).

I was pretty lucky that it did not rain during my adventure on either day. Right as we finished the last activity, rafting, the rain finally came. Our guide carefully drove the truck back out of the jungle. On the way, we passed two tourist charter vans stuck on a dirt hill that had turned to mud! The Thai tour team waved down my tour guides, who jumped out to help push. Being a good Boy Scout, I also came down and started moving the van with them, pushing up the hill. The Spaniard even joined in and we finally got both vehicles up the hill and the tires spinning on solid ground again. The Spanish girlfriend was watching the whole time and got pretty fired up when we came back to the truck. She complained, and rightly so, that both vans were full of tourists! None of the tourists who were actually "stuck in the mud," got out to help push, even after seeing the obvious American and Spanish tourists do so. And the tourists didn't bother to get out and watch the effort either, because if they at least got out, the van would have been much lighter to push! She had a good point! We laughed it off and were content to know we had rescued the lazy tourists.

This was a great weekend and the perfect end to nearly five months in Thailand. The jungles of Chiang Mai will be well maintained in my memories! Next stop, Nanjing, China!