A day in the country side

There are so many trips to do from Chiang Mai, and I did some of them when I was here last year.
There are a lot of visits to Elephant camps, cooking classes and river boat trips each of which I did last time.
There are many involving trekking, white water rafting and floating down rivers on a bamboo raft, most of them include 1 or 2 over night stays in a tent or 'homestay' with a local family, all the promotional photos show people in their teens and twenties, and to be honest I think I would have preferred to have done it 20 years ago!
A lot of the tours go where many other tourists go which can be annoying, and so I was pleased to be able to join a new tour that went off the beaten track and indeed the 3 of us (myself and 2 German men in their late 50's) were the only westerners we saw all day.
We were met by our guide at 8am, a 26 yr old that we called Mr P as his name was far too long to remember.
Our transport was a covered truck with two padded benches down each side, they are what are used as every day taxis and can hold 10 people,  probably more like 8 westerners as we are that much bigger. The back is open so you can see where you have been and it makes for a nice breeze.
First stop was to watch wonderfully talented carpenters, spending their days sculpting mainly Elephants and a few Buddhas from different woods. They were also commissioned by Hotels to make huge life size ones and these were made from concrete.

There were literally hundreds of carefully carved Elephants most of which were in a couple of rooms that very few people ever got to see.
It is a talent that not many would have and these men had been working there all their lives in pretty rough conditions as the pictures show.

 This was being carved by the boss and had taken some 6 months, it was beautiful, another completed one was in one of the rooms.

They are 3D effect and so intricate, an amazing talent to have.

This was where some of the workers lived, simple but beautiful against the lush green

And so, on with the day, next stop were some caves. What the tour description didn't say was that there were many many steps to climb to get to the entrance and many many going down to descend into the caves, and it goes without saying, they had to be negotiated in reverse when coming back out of the cave...Not my favourite part of the day.

And now, onto lunch which we were to be cooking ourselves.

This  was fun and began with a trip to a local market to buy the ingredients.

It was really interesting looking around and seeing what the locals eat, some of the more extreme items being frogs, some were sold alive (to prove their freshness) they would later be barbecued, and critters that looked like cockroaches but I was assured they weren't.

Fascinating to see and they were just as fascinated by us as they don't usually see any foreigners.

This lady was selling what we know as a 'bouquet garni' fresh herbs to add to a chicken stew, the shear size of it was amazing and far outshone anything we can buy in Tesco!

Ingredients purchased and a mile up the road to our  guides home that was still in  the process of being built for him by his Father.

He told us it is in preparation for his wife and children, however a wife has yet to be found, he says they don't want him because he is too skinny-bless!

Here, on the floor of Mr P's home, are the 2 German men, although very pleasant didn't share my humour especially when I laughed at them when they dutifully donned their aprons!

Here they are shredding mango that will go into the spicy salad to accompany the chicken curry and rice and Pad Thai that we would also make.

Mr P who describes himself as a happee hippee

Cooking in the open kitchen, with a lovely view through to his garden comprising banana and papaya trees and many different herbs that we gathered to add to the pot.

After a tasty lunch Mr P surprised us by picking up his guitar and singing some tunes. He used to be in a group an had a great voice.

Our view from this room was of the open fields and mountains

 Its' time to harvest the rice, and on our drive there were many people in the fields gathering it into piles to dry out and then extract the rice.

A man trying to impersonate a scarecrow  poses with 2 bales of rice, it's hard work and Hot!

We went to a place where several ladies were making fabric on old looms from of cotton and silk, after that we went to a huge lake where we were promised it would be tranquil with the odd person fishing.

Instead, there were about 7 rowdy men getting p****d on Thai whisky celebrating I don't know what and having a fun time. We were a source of amusement to them, there are not many foreigners in this part of town. They did invite us to join them for a drink but Mr P declined for us ( I would have said yes!)

Our last stop was to climb another load of bloody steps to the top of a temple where the view was stunning, you could see for miles, hard to capture its beauty on a photo.

Back down the steps and a 45 minute drive back to town.

The day was fun and reminded me how much I love the rural areas and people of this beautiful country.