The afternoon was well under way by the time our bus rolled into Berga, the mornings hiking and that smashing lunch were now well behind us. Situated half way down the mountains Berga had a sleepy, one horse town sort of feel to it. But we weren’t there for horses… We were there for adventure – adventure in the form of Quad bikes!
(The company we were there with was called Indomit, they organise all sorts of adventurous activities and some pretty crazy ones too).
Now Georgie and I are no strangers to the ways of a quad, she used to have one and we’ve misspent many a day ripping fields apart with one – but this was set to be different. We were just outside a small town but even from there the landscape hinted at the possibility of fun, of hilly tracks and dirt roads. I do always have my doubts on group adventures like that though because It’s usually the case that a group is held back by it’s least experienced member, but hey, we didn’t pay for anything so I wasn’t about to say poke it!

We got a look at the four wheeled beauties and got sized up for safety gear. Our guide gave us a brief safety briefing and we paired off and plonked on a quad.
Georgie was up first with the driving so I just leaned back and enjoyed the ride like a Spanish Miss Daisy. As expected it was slightly slow going to begin with while everyone got used to things but as we rolled through the narrow streets of a nearby town everyone was beginning to loosen up and the quad bike procession was moving nicely… Georgie however was not happy with the pace and hung right back as to open a gap between us and the next quad, wait until there was room… And boot it, full throttle down the track. She did that plenty of times before the guide caught on and gave us a good old finger wave.

The track deteriorated into a forest and we got another brief briefing about keeping our distances as we entered the rough stuff… And away they roared, one by one into the forest. We were behind Nellie (Wild Junket) and Karen (Europe A La Carte) and as Nellie pulled onto the track bless her, the front wheel caught a rut and threw them right up the verge, they were balancing on two wheels and the thing was about ready to topple over onto Karen… I had to jump off our quad and go balance theirs quickly before they ended up wearing it!
By the time I’d helped them get it back down and ready to roll again the guide came running back all worried that there had been an incident of massive proportion or something… Over my shoulder Georgie was pulling some of the sweetest do-nuts I’ve seen for a long long time.
Crisis over Karen took the reigns and with slightly more caution we were off once again.

Once things got moving it was actually really fun, I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would and despite nearly being driven off one of the hills (I’ll mention no names) it turned out to be one of the best Quad rides I’ve ever been on. I don’t know if it was the hilly forest tracks (In Norfolk it’s as flat as a pancake) the quietly beautiful mountain scenery or the onset of a rather tasty sunset but by the time we got back to “The Ranch” everyone seemed full of it, whatever “it” is. I think despite not everyone liking the Quad bike adventure, they did however appreciate it and over some warming coffees the whole bunch of bloggers seemed to have bonded a great deal…

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(Next Photo Essay: Bac Ha Market, Northern Vietnam)

1. Jungle Trekking Chiang Mai: At times through some very thick Jungle.

2. Jungle Trekking Chiang Mai: Huts in small jungle villages made the simple life look beautiful.

3. Jungle Trekking Chiang Mai: The jungle has it's dangers for the flip flop wearer!

4. Jungle Trekking Chiang Mai: Children at a jungle village somewhere in Chiang Mai.

5. Jungle Trekking Chiang Mai: An old lady cleaning up after the hungry trekkers.

6. Jungle Trekking Chiang Mai: An old lady cleaning up after the hungry trekkers.

7. Jungle Trekking Chiang Mai: An Elephant and his Mahout, getting a rub down in the jungle.

8. Jungle Trekking Chiang Mai: The Elephant thought our camera was bananas...

9. Jungle Trekking Chiang Mai: After a few long days trekking we stayed in a jungle hut with views to die for.

10. Jungle Trekking Chiang Mai: Sore and tired, the views of the hills and jungle around Chiang Mai made up for it.

(Next Photo Essay: Bac Ha Market, Northern Vietnam)

If you’ve been jungle trekking in Chiang Mai and have a picture you would like to share please add the link in the comments section and it should magically appear, I’ll link back to you also… Mucho Mucho Love…

]]> http://happytimeblog.co.uk/travel-pictorials/pictures-jungle-trekking-chiang-mai/feed/ 13 http://happytimeblog.co.uk/catalonia/hiking-bergueda-mountains-spain/ http://happytimeblog.co.uk/catalonia/hiking-bergueda-mountains-spain/#comments Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:10:55 +0000 Aaron Bradford | HappytimeBlog.co.uk http://happytimeblog.co.uk/?p=2657
Spain happens to be one of those lucky countries that enjoys the best of all worlds, you’ve got the option of sunning it up on a beach or rolling in the snow. Sip coffee at a cosmopolitan cafe in Barcelona or get good and adventurous up in the mountains. Which leads me nicely to to what happened next in Catalonia… Adventure in the Bergueda mountains. It was yet another early morning for the intrepid bloggers and the previous nights epic buffet dinner was definitely not helping matters. To be honest it was beginning to rub a little, not starting dinner until 9 pm and then up at 7 am – but when the wine is flowing we aint the kind of cats to say no, the price – not much more than 6 hours sleep and a hangover every morning. But, nothing a spot of hiking in the snowy mountains wouldn’t fix…

We had stayed the night at El Montanya Resort, a plush spa resort hotel nestled in the north east region of Seva , Spain. After we’d finished up at the Barcelona cookery classes the previous day we jumped straight on the minibus and now it was time to do it all again. The bus dragged us slowly skywards and the landscape started to open up, I forget how high we actually were by the time we stepped off the bus… For two reasons: 1. The views were huge…

2. It was -10 below freezing…

I tried my best to roll a smoke before we set off hiking but the cold was chomping at my fingers and Georgie was raging about me not letting her pack her big jumper, rightly so under the circumstances. Still, the only way to warm things up was to get hiking. Our guide Albert Was a happy fellow all decked out in proper adventure gear with sticks to walk with and all sorts, this really didn’t inspire either me or Georgie with confidence because we’d just thrown on what we’d normally wear with a couple of extra T-shirts underneath. We set off and once the group had got up into the trees the wind was off us and the blood was pumping and things were warming up nicely. Hiking is something I always actually enjoy doing more than I think I would and up there on the snow covered hills of Bergueda it was all good. We were hiking for a few hours and probably because of the good company and the beautiful views of the Pyrenees Mountains the time seemed to fly by, it wasn’t a particularly demanding trek but it did have it’s rewards in the form of lunch at Els Roures, a hillside lodge that made the most of  locally grown mushrooms. We piled in the doors of the place after a short drive back down the mountains and the first thing that gets you is the huge fireplace that sits in the middle of the room… By huge I mean really huge, it has what I would call “trunk sections” not logs – actual large parts of a tree trunk!
As the warmth slowly found it’s way back into my life we were all handed a small shot glass sized cup and a spoon, it went by the name of hot chocolate but it didn’t look like it… It was literally hot chocolate, not coco… melted hot chocolate – the fire, the chocolate, I surrendered then and there to a life in the Bergueda mountains. What followed was nothing short of perfect, we were moved upstairs to a large room and the wine began to pour, the food began to arrive and what a feast it was. Every dish on the menu was traditional mountain grub and came with a side order of the locally grown mushrooms,  they even had mushroom liquor aperitifs, after working up a hiking hunker it was exactly what everyone needed and to be honest it was one of the best lunch’s that I’ve ever had!
Due to the amount of wine and mushroom liquor that was disappearing attentions turned to our afternoons adventure activity… Quad biking through the hills – were we still capable? I didn’t even care, I was warm, full and half cut.

Hot off the presses is the new HipCompass Escapes fall edition with our featured article about Adventure travel in Laos… Get it while it’s hot, heres a taster to wet your whistles:

“We passed through rice fields and small villages, along winding roads and alongside rivers – all idyllic and stunningly beautiful. We made our way over the hills that surround Vang Vieng and back down the other side, the road was smooth enough and any serious pot holes were scoffed up by our trusty steeds with ease. We found a small cafe down by the river as it meandered between the last of the hills and pulled over for coffee and a refreshing dip – it was stunning! The limestone peaks stretched high into the sky and scratched the bellies of the low lying clouds, completely rural and silent at that moment I realised that was what I left home for. Mixed with the excitement of the journey ahead a sense of sadness washed over me, a sense that all my travels before that had been done the wrong way – if I were on a bus I would’ve breezed past and the river and its beautiful setting would’ve  been nothing more that a fleeting glimpse, all the places I may have missed started racing through my head and all I could do was hope that this time I would make up for it.”

Enjoy.

Hot off the presses is the new HipCompass Escapes fall edition with our featured article about Adventure travel in Laos… Get it while it’s hot, heres a taster to wet your whistles:

“We passed through rice fields and small villages, along winding roads and alongside rivers – all idyllic and stunningly beautiful. We made our way over the hills that surround Vang Vieng and back down the other side, the road was smooth enough and any serious pot holes were scoffed up by our trusty steeds with ease. We found a small cafe down by the river as it meandered between the last of the hills and pulled over for coffee and a refreshing dip – it was stunning! The limestone peaks stretched high into the sky and scratched the bellies of the low lying clouds, completely rural and silent at that moment I realised that was what I left home for. Mixed with the excitement of the journey ahead a sense of sadness washed over me, a sense that all my travels before that had been done the wrong way – if I were on a bus I would’ve breezed past and the river and its beautiful setting would’ve  been nothing more that a fleeting glimpse, all the places I may have missed started racing through my head and all I could do was hope that this time I would make up for it.”

Enjoy.

Widescreen (1920 x 1200) | Standard (1280 x 1024)

]]> http://happytimeblog.co.uk/desktop-wallpaper/august-desktop-wallpaper-now-yours/feed/ 4 http://happytimeblog.co.uk/travel-videos/the-long-way-laos-feature-length-video/ http://happytimeblog.co.uk/travel-videos/the-long-way-laos-feature-length-video/#comments Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:37:20 +0000 Aaron Bradford | HappytimeBlog.co.uk http://happytimeblog.co.uk/2009/09/19/the-long-way-laos-feature-length-video/ Watch The Long Way Laos now – Our motorbike adventure 550km from Vang Vieng to Luang Probang. The ups and downs through one of the most stunning countries in south-east Asia… As featured in the on-line travel magazine – Hip Compass Escapes.

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Seeing as we had to have our beautiful bikes back by 9am or pay for a whole extra day – and we still had about 90km to go it was an early start… 5:30am early to be exact! I didn’t manage a descent nights sleep and after I had woken the other it seemed like they hadn’t either, don’t know why though because although our rooms were “simple” the were very comfortable, maybe we were just over tired. As I staggered out of our room, down the hall to to the toilet I caught a peek of the sunrise out of a small grubby window and it was breathtaking – the hills rolled up and down all the way to the horizon and a heavy mist hung low, the sun coming up had turned the sky bright pink and the mist was just as brightly tainted by the beautiful morning sun.

We got ourselves together and got downstairs to our bikes, the lady who ran the guest house was up and making the first fire of the day to boil the kettle and get breakfast for all the truckers who had stopped over the night. We tried to get ourselves some hot coffee but the water was taking forever and as we all know a watched pot never boils. I rolled the bikes out into the street and checked my oil which was getting pretty low again and Georgie sorted some coffee (we were going nowhere until after some coffee). As soon as everyone and the bikes were topped up respectively we set off into the morning mist.

As we passed through town and along the winding roads they were all buzzing with activity as people went about their business before the sun got too hot. As usual the people we passed waved and smiled, so friendly and so welcoming. The roads were just as fun to drive as the day before and with the cool morning air our bike was running like a dream… Accelerate – change up – ease off – brake – change down – and accelerate… That was how it went for the next 15 km and as we swept around one bend that was completely whited out on one side it became clear that it wasn’t in fact morning mist but low lying clouds and they swept right across the road revealing sneaks of blue sky.

We pulled over again at the amazing viewpoint rest stop that we stopped at on the way up but this time there was no view, it was just white everywhere, even inside the building because they aren’t finished building it yet and where there’s no glass the clouds blew threw as we finally knocked up some hot coffee’s.

Still looking at a good 70km to go we didn’t hang around, coffee down we carried on our way through the clouds. The roads were still lined with friendly people making there way to wherever it was they were going and as we slowly dropped down the hill we started to drop below the cloud and the landscape once again opened right up.

Sadly the ride back only seemed to take half as long and by 8 am we were out of the hills and down onto the flat straight roads again, we opened up the bikes and made some serious headway. We passed a couple of places where we stopped on the way through and they all waved and shouted of course but we didn’t stop again until we got to the little coffee shack on the river, there was a spit of rain in the air but now we were down from the hills things had warmed right up. We stripped off the extra layers had a smoke or two then made the final push back into Vang Vieng, Georgie was loving it from the second we got up but now she was desperate for a wee so we had to burn some rubber and get through the last 15km in record time. We rolled into Vang Vieng at 8:50 and pulled up at our guest house where our bags were stowed in blazing sunshine. We unloaded all our crap and Georgie’s comfort modifications while she tented to her urgent loo call and then we had to return the bikes… Needless to say I really didn’t want to, it was my first real bike and my first real bike ride and what a ride it had been, hard at times and we were all exhausted but I’m hooked… The funny thing is Vang Vieng to Luang Probang is a road that just about every Laos tourist travels at some point except they’re on a bus, behind glass, reading books but we actually travelled it, we felt every mile and we felt every bump. The people we met and the places we stopped would never have been possible if we were on the bus and there is something about a bike that makes you feel connected to the environment and you have to work with the road not in spite of it… Laos is by far the most charming country we have been to, the people are so warm and welcoming and those few days have been some of the most interesting, fun, hard and enjoyable of my whole time away.