資料來源：http://www.chinapost.com.tw/guidepost/topics/default.asp?id=3355&next=1&sub=7
Escape the hustle and bustle of city life in the stunning Thai countryside
I was in Bangkok and less than enamored. The city is chaotic, so overflowing with skyscrapers and malls that it seems ready to burst. I felt the need to escape, so I headed north toward a city called Chiang Mai. I'd heard there would be waterfalls and elephants in the nearby countryside, and a chance to get at least a little closer to another side of Thailand.
Chiang Mai is a city of about 200,000, a relief compared to Bangkok's 9 million. There are leafy parks, inviting art galleries and little children wandering around in school uniforms. I went with my friend Michal Ruth Penwell, an artist who has lived in Bangkok for years, and we laughed when people said, more than once, that we must be twins. We look nothing alike except that we are both foreigners here.
This is hardly a place, though, where time has stopped. Motorbikes zoom around stuffed with three people apiece, some texting, others reading books. The place is dotted with 7-Elevens, the sidewalks crammed both with backpackers and businesses meant to cater to them.
There is also an abundance of trekking companies in Chiang Mai, all offering what seem like similar packages, so we picked one that was cheap. We signed up for what was described as a two-day, one-night jungle hike. The tour company picked us up in a van in town the next morning. After driving for some time, our driver deposited us in the bend of a hilly road somewhere in the Mae Taeng valley, and we set out with our Thai tour guide.
The tropical woods that we hiked through were loud with shrieking insects, but it was tranquil there all the same. Our guide knew the woods like someone who had been in them his whole life, picking herbs, spotting a stick bug that was all but invisible to me and trying to coax out a tarantula when it ran into its hole. When he wasn't successful, I was not disappointed.
That evening we stayed in a one-room cabin in a hill tribe village, a place with a tiny school, maybe a few dozen houses and not much else. Kids chased each other around their yards while water buffalo meandered on the single street.
In the evening, we built a fire and some of the villagers stopped by to see us — some to sell handmade bracelets or bottled water, but some just to see the "farang," the Thai word for foreigner. The people there spoke a tribal language, not Thai, so our communication was mostly limited to hand signals and smiles. I'd brought pictures of New York, where I live, and passed them around.
The next morning, our guide cooked eggs before we hiked again and cooled off in some amazing waterfalls. Later, a pickup truck took us to the Huay Poeng Elephant Camp, where we rode elephants and bought them bananas, and then to a river where guides rowed us along a lazy stream in bamboo rafts.
I'd do this trip again in a minute, and would go for more than one night if I had the chance. I feel lucky that I went, and was happy to ditch the disorder of the city for the playground of the jungle.
資料來源：http://www.chinapost.com.tw/guidepost/topics/default.asp?id=3355&next=1&sub=7
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