9th Jun 2011 -
Today we went to the rain forest to do zip lining through the jungle canopy's. The tour is called 'the flight of the gibbon' and is voted the best tour in Thailand. We were in a group of 7 and I was only girl which made it worse as I was panicking about the heights and safety and I really could have done with some annoying scaredy girls crying to make me look better.
We were put in our safety gear and led into the rain forest we done a bit of trekking through the jungle (I recommend not wearing open-toed sandals as feet got dirty) then we arrived at the first of 32 platforms. We were harnessed onto the zip line by the instructors and went flying.
The canopy's and views of the lush green surroundings, as soon as I let go of the platform I wasn't nervous anymore I knew it was safe and Shannon was great helping me along. Shannon found it amazing and had time to let his hands free and took videos (I was certainly not letting go of the rope though) we trekked a little more and even got a chance to see real life swinging gibbons in the trees, we were told only in the early tour will you catch a glimpse of these monkeys.
We carried on doing the zip lines some were 800metres long. We also got to lie face down on one which I panicked about as i couldn't hold on but half second later it was great. We done two abseils aswell and walked across shanty rope bridges hundreds of metres high.
We had lunch then went to a huge waterfall where me and Shan played on vines swinging around like Tarzan. We met another backpacker called Scott from England and we shared travelling stories, he is staying at a hostel which cost him £2 but sounds like a dive and as you can probably work out we aren't proper backpackers and would rather stay in nicer accommodation where possible even if it costs a little bit more.
When we finished we went a walk to see a Wat which is the Asian word for a Temple. 96% of Thais are Buddhists and there are hundreds of Wats around Chiang Mai. There is Buddha statues everywhere and their buildings are marvellous, I can't understand though why they build normal shops and car parks etc next to them and you can't see them fully as telephone cables hide the outside.
We got a shake as we walked back to hotel, we were early for the train so had a smoothie in bar then got a songthaew to the train station. A songthaew (song-tow....as in towel without el) is a pick up truck used like a taxi it has a bench either side to sit. We arrived in plenty of time for out sleeper train which left on time at 16:30.
We watched Limitless had a beer in cafe and went to sleep I watched the new series of Gossip Girl which I got at the fake DVD Market. We had to move carriages because the first one absolutely stank of toilet, we got to swap before we had left and were in a carriage full of foreigners like Thais and Chinese, turned out to be great because our squat toilets were clean the whole journey because these people must use them all the time it was fab- only us to mess it up then! ( and before you think we are minging you need to try hover over a toilet seat while the train is travelling at 150 miles an hour shaking about)
