Dec 31st, 2011, Chiang Mai

It's the last day of year 2011. Damn. So have you done things you wanted to this year? I think I'm very satisfied with my year, it's been a good one, a lot has happened. But back to this moment, what has happened in the last couple of days? On wednesday morning we arrived in Chiang Mai after a romantic night with the German guys in the train. On wednesday we were too tired to do anything else than to eat, walk around the town and take a thai-massage. Which was really nice, by the way. Compared to the Burmese one, it was more gentle and more professional. Very nice indeed. Only future will tell us if the Lao or Cambobian massage can compete with this one.

After a long bargaining and mind battle with our hotel receptionist we decided to take a two-day trek from our own hotel, with a very good price. We ended up forming a group with two Dutch girls and five girls from Chile. It was quite a nice group, but such a girl-overpowered group also has a lot of issues. So there was some complaining, waiting and argueing with the guide included in this trek. In the first day we basicly just walked for three hours and then stayed overnight with a local family. It was a very nice and authentic atmosphere. Our guide (Ton) was quite an interesting person, and he thought us with his friend some local games by the camp fire in the evening.



The second day was much more exciting than the first one. At first we went to see the elephants, did some bathing with them and then took a short tour with them. You just have to love those animals! Big as a house, and still so relaxed and chilled out. After that we did some bambu-rafting, which was also relaxing and nice. Zip-wire-thing was also ok, although very lame. You should've been in the jungle doing it to get some excitement out of it. The last mission of the day was white-water rafting. Absolutely amazing, but totally too short. You got the taste of what it might have been, and then it ended. But all-in-all, a very nice day with a lot of sun and fun.



In the evening we still had time to eat very well in our hotel and then head out. We found a really atmospheric rooftop bar in the centre, and spent the night in there. The only unpleasant accident of the night was when I found a huge cockroach climbing on top of my knee in the bar. Not a nice surprise at all..

Today we are flying to Luang Prabang in Laos, where we spend the New Year's Eve.