For the love of marmite......we found Chang Mai....

Chang Mai calling…we made it, after visiting the home of Terry’s Grandad whilst a prisoner of war to the Japanese, River Kwai, we visited some elephants but didn’t have the heart to ride them due to their horrendous holes in their fore heads from mean men using ice picks to get there way so we travelled up to the home of the Karen Hill Tribe. Many travellers describe this place as their favourite of all travels, its chilled here, relaxing and so much to explore.

We left the hectic Koh San road (where ladyboys a plenty and the smell is enough to make you heave) and headed for our 'VIP' bus for our Northbound travel. We spend some time in the internet café catching up with emails and having a coffee, when Terry looked at me, white as a ghost and screaming, the one word that you enever want to ehar, the item that gives you the freedom to move from country to country, the little burgundy book, our passports! He had hidden them under the bed in our 300 Baht a night, wooden walled hostel and forgot to pick them up as he left. Terry dropped everything and ran for the hostel. I panicked thinking of all that wwe would need to do if they had been taken. Ten minutes of fast heart beating and he was back, red faced, with a smile and our passports on him. We got on our ‘VIP’ bus , that was not VIP and smelt like a large toilet with chewing gum all over the seats and started our 10 hour journey to the North. We finally arrived at our destination at 6am, tired and weary and not excited for the hostel search. We spent 2 hours walking around the town, with our Lonely Planet as our guide and found a little gem of a hostel where we spent the whole day in bed…


A new day arrived and we were both refreshed and ready for some more exploring. A typical travelling haunt is to the local Karen Hill Tribe, a village of people who lived very high in the Thai hills and lived on the land.Six of us in total headed out early and began our ‘2 hour’ trek through the jungle to the village we were staying that night. The trek turned into a very hot, humid, hilly 5 hour trek and Terry ended up dragging me up the steep inclines.

We arrived at our village camp, and set up our beds, well…blankets on a wooden floor with a small mosquito net for cover, not exactly what we know a bed as but all the same a different and exciting experience. There were cracks in the floor and you could peek down when lying there at the chickens and dogs below. We chilled out to the sounds of the jungle, chickens and children playing and watch the sun go down from our wooden hut. The jungle was very full, green and lush and the sunset was a great reward for all of the hard work. After a few hours, we were treated to an amazing green thai curry with rice and a few local drinking games, that resulted in charcoal all over my face and a sore stomach.

After waking up at 5am to the alarm clock of the cockerel, we trekked further through the jungle to a group of local people and their elephants. This time, I actually rode an elephant, they were much better looked after and so I really wanted just to feel what it was like to walk with one. Terry stayed behind and fed the baby ones some bananas.

The afternoon was spent on what we thought was a relaxing bamboo rafting, however it was anything but relaxing and we ended up on at least class 1 rapids, Terry fell off and lost his flip flops and we all got soaked. Great fun though and we enjoyed being in the jungle.
Chang Mai has been a great experience, a lovely jungle town with a brilliant bazaar market. We also found our friend, Marmite here, it’s the Australian one though so Terry was really disappointed, but right now it’s a total present from heaven to put on our plain toast!

We are off to Laos today, I cannot wait, the freedom of travelling from country to country is unexplainable unless you’ve done it yourself. Its incredible. We have a 2 day slow boat booked to get there though so could be a while…