23rd of July, Chiang Mai
Our first day in northern Thailand after a 700 kilometre trip by train. Chiang Mai is like Bangkok, just a bit smaller, and a bit cheaper. The city itself is crowded with tourists, I even saw a "German Hofbraeuhaus" ... Embarrassing to see young thai woman, dressed in Bavarian clothes. Why do Germans fly thousands and thousands of kilometres, just to sit in a look a like German restaurant and eat German food?!

24th of July, Jungeltrek
We left Chiang Mai early in the morning. Up north to start our three day jungle treck.
Sebastian and Clara, a couple from Austria, Martin my travel companion, Veronica, a journalist from London, myself, Mr. Mong, our Trek guide and a cook. A small group of European's looking for an adventure in the jungle. We started with lunch at Mr. Mong's house and went on an elephant ride, which took about 1,5 hours.

We then hiked up to a little jungle camp, next to a river. It took us about three hours to get there. To swim in the river was an very welcome refreshment after the exhausting hike through the jungle. The dinner, a combination of chicken, stuff Mong and the cook collected in the jungle and rice was really excellent. We spent the first night in a small hut and slept on the wooden floor. It took some till I got used to it.

25th of July, Jungle, Karren village
We left the camp early to hike up a mountain, about 1500 Meters high. We ate our lunchpackage, noodles, on top of the mountain. The noodles where covered in a big leaf. A very good idea, because it doesn't pollute the jungle. Three hours later, walking through the jungle we arrived at the Karren Village. The children in the village where already waiting for us. We had little presents (candy and cookies) for them. The kids then offered us necklace and some other stuff. I decided to not buy anything. It was a quiet difficult decision. On the one hand, these people are really poor, on the other hand, there is the risk that those people (especially kids) get depended of money from tourists. The kids were very interested in my binoculars and so I spend about an hour, explaining how to use it. I found out that I was the first one who ever showed them binoculars. After dinner, the cook asked us for help with a burning wound on his leg. He had an accident with his motorbike about two weeks ago. The wound was already badly infected. Sebastion is a med-student and knew what to do. He cleaned the wound and put some salve on it. Then he covered the wound with a sterile bandage. That's when I realised that those people may know that tourists like coke and beer and that we have a lot of money, but they have no glimpse that you have to keep a wound clean and covered. We explained the cook how to handle the wound and told him that he has to change the bandage every day and use new, sterile bandage (to cook cotton bandage before usage) and put salve on the wound.