Day 21 and Day 22: Chiang Mai

Day 21: The day was full of activities. We started the day going on an elephant ride out in the country side. The country side was lush green. Chaing Mai the temp. is much more moderate and cooler than Bangkok. The elephant ride started off a bit bumpy as when my friend Kim and I got on the elephant the guide was hitting the elephant on the ear quite a few times and the elephant kept swaying back and forth. I was a little concerned that the elephant might revolt and throw us off, luckily there was a seat for two on the elephant, with a rod that protected us from falling down. The elephant ride was fun, though there were some close call, as we went close to some edges and luckily the elephant managed to stay on track.

Then we headed to tribal village and then to waterfall. The walk/trek to the waterfall was a bit rocky as there were some close edges, but luckily we had two nice Belgium guys (of Moroccan descent) helping Kim and I down to the waterfall. Then we headed to whitewater rafting and bamboo raft. The water for the whitewater rafting was brown and murky, but it was alot of fun. The Belgium guys were in the raft with us and they were quite funny and animated during our rafting trip. The bamboo raft was fun, it was basically sticks of bamboos put together and we all sat in the center of the raft. It was a couple of inches under water so were pretty much in the murky water most of the time.

Day 22: Today we took the train back to Bangkok. Unfortunately, we had to cut the trip short in Chiang Mai due to the International Flower Fest. going on that weekend, and we were not able to get any flights back to Bangkok. We rode first class on the train back to Bangkok, which costed us a little under $20 for a 12 hour train ride and we even got lunch, a snack, and dinner on the train. We ended up meeting a nice Dutch couple on the train.