chiang mai - III

hej alois, eine super zeit haben wir da in thailand gehabt. hat mich gefreut, dass das wandern und treffen zustandegekommen ist.
lass dir die anderen photos bei zeiten mal zukommen.
und nicht vergessen: einige elephanten sind zum trinken da!

chiang mai - II

our hiking group in between
of a ricefieldkaren village in the mountains
our sleeping place
karen child
jungle hiking
elephant riding
waterfall
alois taking a refreshing
bath in the jungle
lunch wrapped in some
leaves and using
selfmade bamboo-
chopsticks
another waterfall

chiang mai - I

after a 6h busride i took a tuk-tuk to the airport to pick alois (my friend from austria) up. aferwards we went to our rendevouz hotel and startet with sightseeing. but in chiang mai there are just a few imposant wats (tempel) and the very big and crowded nightmarket. so we decided to go on a 3 days hiking trip to see some native people (karen), swimming at some waterfalls and doing elephant riding and bamboo rafting.
we also found a very nice restaurant, probably one of the most expensive in chiang mai and spent about 700.- baht there.
on the next day our guide, charly picked us up and we drove to the mountains in the south of the town.
during a burning hot midday we startet walking for about 2h and saw the first two karen villages and we had our first bath under a waterfall.
we also stayed at the karen village overnight in a small hut without electricity and other comfortable and useless stuff.
next day, after sunrise we started for another walk to other karen villages; 3 more waterfalls gave us the needed refreshing cooling after walking in the hot and humid forrest.
finally we reached another hilltribe where we stayed over night until the next morning. the peaceful area was only disturbed by scary dogs and their serious dogfights.
after another night in our woodbeds , which caused a painful morning, we got a shaking massage while riding on elephants.
and because we got a dirty and muddy elephant-shower, we started with our bamboo-boat ride.
back in chiang mai, dirty, smelly and wet the luxuiosity of having a shower was something really great.
hiking in this area and seeing the karen people was adventureous, interessting, fun, painful, hot and sweating, chilling in the nights,... something i will remember.

now it is halftime of my traineeship in thailand and the holiday with alois gave me motivation and energy for the second part here at the university.

my buddish monks

every friday i can join a group of english learning buddhish monks. we talk about differences between thailand and austria and they can ask question and so. on the lefthandside of the picture you can see kibriow from tadjikistan, another iaeste student here in phitsanuloke; but she leaves in 2 weeks :-(
and two other exchange students are coming soon: this weekend marit, the girl from norway will arrive and in about 4 weeks a girl from brasil is coming to my faculty :-)

friends - rainforest - elephants

this weekend i stayed in Phitsanuloke, met some friends and organised the "1st IAESTE Thailand Phitsanuloke Weekend".
This is Jamie from England with his girlfriend. Jamie is english teacher as well as Norman from New Zealand. Every Wednesday we are meeting for dinner and playing cards later on. Most of the time we are ending at some bars/clubs until 4am in the morning.

With Rung, a microbiologist at PSRU, we went to the greatest restaurant i have ever seen.
The Rainforest Restaurant! So you are sitting in between of a lot of plants in a small hut and the river is also floating in front of you. Some strange creatures are also standing along the path to the water.

Rung and me

at the Rainforest Restaurant
The hotel i picked for the IAESTE weekend is called "Sappraiwan Grand Hotel and Resort" and has got everything for spending a beautiful day there: pool, sauna and rafting as well as some elephants for riding. There are also some waterfalls in the area but it was too dark for taking pictures the last time.

at the elephant hotel

my elephant and i played a while together but then he decided to try the taste of my arm, but still we are good friends *gg* sunset somwhere around Phitsanuloke at 7pm.