Frequently asked questions
Chiangmai Trekking with Piroon
I am looking for a unique and non-touristic trekking tour - do you offer such tours?
Absolutely yes. You are looking for an unforgettable trekking adventure in Northern Thailand that is truly unique and authentic and no mass
event that any given tour company is offering?
You have found it!
Chiang Mai Trekking is offering the best trekking in Chiang Mai - with the knowledge of more than 30 years as a trekking and tour guide.
Start an absolutely amazing trekking adventure and delve into some of mother natures finest art with us.
Learn more abour our trekking tours.
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I am travelling alone - is there the option to join a group for a trekking tour?
Yes. If we have another group doing a trekking tour (that is not booked as a private tour) you can of course join them.
This might also result in a lower price for all participants (depending on the final size of the group). Just let us know, when
you would like to book a tour and if another group is booked for the same departure time and duration you can join them.
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Do you only offer 3-days/2-nights tours or can I also book a 1-day or 2-days-1-night trekking with you?
You can book your preferred duration with us. The 3-days/2-nights tour is our most booked tour but
we also offer daytrips or 2-days/1-night trekking tours or tours with more than three days. You can choose your preferred
duration when booking a tour with us.
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Do your tours start on specific days only?
No. We plan all our tours to match our participants personal preferences. That is one of the many reasons that
make our trekking tours very special: we will tailor it to your personal wishes.
Let us know when you want to start and how long you would like to explore the nature with us. If you would like to join another
group, a good idea is to give us more than one day for your preferred starting date.
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How long in advance will I have to book a tour?
We usually suggest to book about 4-6 weeks ahead.
Of course you can also ask for a tour with only two or three days ahaed oro for the next day but take in consideration: the shorter
the time you ask ahead of your preferred starting date, the more difficult it might be to put together a tour for you or find a group that you can join.
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Do you offer tours in other languages than english?
It depends. We can contact freelancer tour guides that speak german or spanish or french. They are not employees of or company
but have been working for us before when needed, so they know our routes. Please contact us some time in advance so we can make sure to book the
freelancer guide early enough.
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I will arrive shortly before the trekking or leave right after the trekking - can you give me a ride from/to the airport?
Of course. It is part of our service to assist you in getting from and to the airport or bus/train station
to our office. Please let us know in advance if you arrive just shortly before your trekking tour. If time allows, we will
pick you up. If we can not arrange it in time: the cost for a taxi from the airport to our office is about 170 THB (TukTuk about 130 THB).
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Can I leave my luggage (e.g.: suitcases) somewhere while going on a trekking tour with you?
Yes. You can leave any luggage that you don't want to carry with you during the trekking with us
in our office. We will keep it safe until you return from your jungle adventure.
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Is it possible to get vegetarian, vegan or halal meals during a trekking?
Yes. Please let us know any restrictions for the meals in advance so we can make sure to organize everything to cook your meals to
match your personal wishes.
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We are a family with children. Is a trekking tour suitable for us as well?
Yes. We will meet you before the trekking tour and pick a route that will suite all participants.
We have had many guests with children at all ages (even with small babies). Your children will have a great time
exploring the jungles with us.
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We are elderly people but consider ourselves to be fit. Will we be able to go on a trekking tour with you?
Yes. We will meet you before the trekking tour and pick a route that will suite all participants.
As long as you are fit enough to walk about 5 km with some uphill and downhill and are a good walker we can find a
route that will let you enjoy your tour with us.
But please also take into account the weather conditions - on hot
days a trekking tour can be exhausting, on rainy days paths can be slippery.
Contact us some
time in advance, so we can make up details.
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Will I see many wild animals during the trekking tour?
Do not mistake a trekking tour for a safari tour like in Africa where the main objective is to see wild animals. Our trekking tours
are not safari tours. We will guide you through the amazing and lush nature of Northern Thailand. You might be lucky and spot a few wild living
animals along the way and we will be happy to explain sights and sounds to you if so.
You will have the chance to meet a small elephant family living with the hilltribes that we visit. You can feed the pachyderms or take a bath with
them and wash them in the shallow river (depending on the tour you book).
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You offer meeting elephants during your tour - are the animals treated well?
The main thing you must know first:
Elephants are not trainable like dogs when it comes to obeying commands or stay where they are told to. Knowing this is important when wanting to meet the small elephant
family.
The elephant family that our guests usually meet during our 2-day and 3-day trekking tours are living in the middle of the dense jungle
with the Karen villagers. The elephants are allowed to walk freely at night and most of the day. They will be brought to the small camp some time before we get there
and the mahouts will have to make sure that the pachyderms don't wander off into the jungles again - hence the elephants will be tied until we are there and meet them.
Although the small elephant family is having some routine in meeting our guests, taking a bath with them and enjoy being washed by the guests there will be times
that the pachyderms are a bit tenacious and the mahout will have to raise his voice in order to get the elephants to follow the mahout to the river and lay down
in the shallow water. By raising his voice the mahout does not want to scare the elephant - he simply tries to get the attention of the animal.
We do have a close eye on how the elephants are treated by their owners as we also want the animals to be treated as good as possible.
We would not offer meeting the small elephant family if we had the feeling that the animals are not treated well and our guests do always have the chance to completely opt out
of meeting the elephants during their tour by telling us in advance - we will then buy lots of bananas for the animals and our guests will instead do some more hiking.
Please do also read our flyer about Elephants in Thailand - What tourists need to know (PDF, 450 KB).
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I do not want to meet the elephants - can this part of the tour be skipped?
Of course. You can skip the meeting with the elephants. Simply let us know in advance.
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Is the trekking or the bamboo rafting physically challenging?
No. We usually meet our guests one or two days before the trekking to check their physical fitness level
and plan a route that suits all participants best. We often have families with small children as our guests and in this case
we also pick a route that even the children can handle and enjoy their adventure in the jungles of Northern Thailand.
The bamboo rafting is the relaxing part of the tour where you will be the passenger of the raft and we will handle the
steering so that you can enjoy the wonderful nature along the creek. The water is not very deep and not very rapid so
that the raft will mostly float and just needs some steering with the poles.
There is a small side node: during the hot months a trekking tour can of course be a little bit more exhausting and if it is very dry
the bamboo rafting can be tricky if the creek is very, very low. During the rainy season the creek can be a little bit more rapid here
and there.
Please do not mistake bamboo rafting for whitewater rafting. Trust us: You would not want to do whitewater rafting on a bamboo raft.
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Can I swim beneath the waterfall during winter season?
It depends. During the winter season (December - March) and due to the low temperatures in the mountains during the nights,
the water can be pretty chilly. Depending on your personal treshold of pain you might rather not want to swim if the water is too cold for you.
Also after heavy raining it can sometimes be way too risky to do a swim in the high water.
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Do the hill tribes that will be visited during a trekking tour benefit from the tour rates or the trekking guests as well?
Yes. Anything you can buy at the jungle villages (e.g.: soft drinks, beer, handicraft souvenirs from the villagers) or that you can enjoy at
the villages (like a relaxing massage) comes directly from the villagers and helps them in benefit from our guests visiting their villages in the middle
of the jungles and in earning a few baht.
Part of the tour rate per guest is spend for the bamboo rafts that are hand-crafted by the villagers for our tour and another portion of the tour
rate of each guest will cover the cost for the overnight stay as well as the cooking possibility for us and the very welcomed chance to take a shower after
a long days trekking tour for us and our guests.
For overnight tours, our supplies for cooking your meals and breakfast that we have bought at a local market on our way to the trekking tours starting point
will be brought from the dropoff at the starting point to the very remote villages by a villager on a motorbike for a reasonable transportation fee while we and
our guests make our way through the lush jungles delving into the terrific and amazing nature on our way to the villages that we spend the nights at.
We are very happy that by providing our guests a glimpse into the hard life of the hill tribes and staying at their villages we also add our share for
them to make some money and just as we want to offer the best experience for our guests on our tours, we also want the villagers, that we visit and know for so many years
to benefit from us and our guest and this is why we give them a bit more than what they charge other trekking companies.
Last not least a part of the incredible experience that our trekking tours offer is also coming from the hilltribes that allow us to visit their village with our guests.
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Will I have the chance to get in touch with some of the inhabitants of the villages?
Basically all of the inhabitants of the villages that we visit on the different tours (e.g.: where you spend the night at) do not speak English at all or
only very, very little and they do of course have their own life and duties during the day and in the evenings most of them take care of their families.
Do not mistake our trekking tours with tours to villages that are made up for tourists (e.g.: Long Neck villages) - we want to deliver authentic experiences.
Hence, the villages we visit during our tours and their inhabitants are not just there to look nice for tourists. The villagers are living a hard live and
are working a hard days work every day and we absolutely do understand if they rather like to mind their own business after a day full of work.
We encourage our guests to wander around in the villages and try to make contacts if they feel like the villagers would like to say hello - keep in
mind that only a few of them do understand/speak english at all.
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Do you also offer sightseeing tours around Chiang Mai?
Yes we do. All the Sightseeing Tours will be accompanied by Piroon himself and he will happily share
all his knowledge about the sights, culture, temples, nature sights, people and everything that is there to know about
a specific sight you visit with him. If you would like to go somewhere special, simply contact us in advance or add
this information when booking. Get some inspiration of our most booked Sightseeing Tours.
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Can you recommend a guesthouse or hotel in Chiang Mai?
Yes we can. We ourselves also offer four rooms in our own guesthouse in the Old City of Chiang Mai: Baan Nantaya.
If you are looking for something more luxury you can contact us and we will recommend a hotel that suits your personal and
monetary specifications.
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Do you also arrange customized special tours (e.g: with trekking, mountain biking, zip lining, ATV driving)?
We are mainly a trekking tours company and this is what we do absolutely best.
We can customize a trekking tour to perfectly fit your personal preferences - be it with sleeping in tents in the middle of the jungle or a week
long trekking tour without seeing any paved roads.
We also offer great private Sightseeing Tours to all the major sights around Chiang Mai.
Anything else we can organize for you with other companies before or after your trekking or sightseeing tour with us - we will pick partners
that we have already booked for other guests and have gotten positive feedback about - if possible.
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What does the accidant insurance cover that Chiangmai Trekking provides for their guest?
We provide an accidant insurance for all our guests during the trekking tour. This insurance covers the cost for injuries during the trekking tour up to an amount of 500,000 THB.
The insurance does not cover any loss of personal belongings.
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Chiang Mai Trekking
Our trekking tour - the highlight of your trip to Thailand
A breathtaking experience
Chiang Mai Trekking - what makes us so special
The best promotion: what our guests say about us
2017-09-17, 12:05 PMFantastische Tour durch den Dschungel!
Niko & Laura, Germany
Wir sind gerade erst von unserer 2-tägigen Tour ins Hotel zurück gekehrt und sind wirklich begeistert. Es hat zwar leider fast die ganze Zeit stark geregnet, aber wir hatten dennoch eine Menge Spaß. Unsere Guides waren cool und das Programm war sehr aufregend. Der Regen hat die Erfahrung nur noch ... [More...]
2017-09-03, 11:55 AMWundervolle Tage mit Piroon
Stefan Müller, Germany
Wir haben Piroon schon 1998 als er noch im " Chiang Mai Garden Guesthouse " als Tourguide angestellt war kennen gelernt. Seit wir Kinder haben war uns klar , dass wir sobald sie alt genug sind, wir bei und mit Piroon eine Dschungeltour machen werden. Diesen Sommer haben wir es gewagt. Uns war zwar nicht ... [More...]
2017-08-24, 12:41 PMNette Menschen
Ruth, Germany
Wir waren 3 Tage auf Trekkingtour. Es war ein einzigartiges Erlebnis. Wir hatten sehr nette Führer. Sie haben uns sehr gut betreut und konnten vom kochen bis zum verarzten und Boot fahren alles. Es war ein schöne Wanderstrecke durch den Dschungel den auch 10-jährige schaffen könnten. Wir haben auch ... [More...]
2017-04-23, 2:42 PMEin unvergessliches Abenteuer ...
Gabi und Ludwig, Germany
Diese 2 Tage / eine Nacht Trekking Tour war von Anfang an sehr gut organisiert. Wir - zwei Paare zw. 55 und 62 Jahren - haben von D aus gebucht. Mit Piroon hat dann unser Abenteuer pünktlich mit dem Abholen an der Unterkunft angefangen. Insgesamt waren wir 11 Personen plus Guides. Nach einem Stop an ... [More...]
2017-03-18, 5:41 PMAmazing Trip
Manu, Germany
Wow wow wow! Als ich die Kommentare hier im Gästebuch gelesen habe, muss ich sagen, dass meine Erwartungen an die Tour sehr hoch waren. Dennoch hat es Noon, der beste und herzlichste Guide der Welt, sowie unsere wahnsinnig harmonische Gruppe, geschafft meine hohen Erwartungen zu übertreffen. Die Tour ... [More...]
2017-01-15, 10:58 PMMost wonderful trekking tour
Stephanie and Tobias Konopac, Germany
We spend 3 most wonderful days with Piroon and 2 other German couples - Tour itself was very interesting; we very nice nature - Elefant riding was very exiting - Bamboo rafting was a nice challange - Piroons dishes were the nicest food we had in Thailand! - Piroon is a very good, experienced guide, who ... [More...]
2016-12-04, 10:20 AMAmazing adventzure
Elke and Uwe, Germany
End of November 2016 we did a 3-days-trekkingtour with our tourguide Mike. We had a great time together with him and profited very much from his experience as a guide, his knowledge about all plants, animals, rice cultivation ... It was a very amazing adventure to be in the Jungle, to ride elephants ... [More...]
2016-11-29, 8:16 PMGreat, funny and lovely
Ferdinand O., Germany
Hi, we Ferdi (35) and Hannah (31) from Karlsruhe (Germany) been on the 3 days trekking Tour with the Guide Soa and his nephew Eddy. From the first meeting with Soa right in the middle of Chiang Mai until the last good Bye at our Hotel the Trip was an absolutely outstanding Experience. The trekking Tour ... [More...]
2016-11-27, 9:14 AMUnforgettable experience, Wonderful guide
Naimah Ibrahim, United Kingdom
We booked a three day/two night trekking tour in the jungle and as first timers we didn't really know what to expect. Trekking through the jungle, sleeping in huts under the stars in the local villages, delicious meals prepared by candlelight, showering in fresh running springs, bamboo rafting down the ... [More...]
2016-11-25, 2:16 PMEnfin un trekking authentique
Alain Rocher, France
Trekking à faire les yeux fermés. Organisation irréprochable. Couchage dans des vrais villages avec des habitants souriants . Vous pouvez trouver des trekkings évidemment moins chers mais pas de cette qualité tant nous sortons hors des sentiers battus .un grand merci à Piroon pour ce beau ... [More...]
2016-04-29, 8:16 PMThe best to do in Chiang Mai!
Jan H., GER
The best to do in chiang mai! Absolutly worth it. Det, our guide was almost part of our family after this trekking tour. No stress, no worries only relaxing and walking through the mighty jungle. No problem if you are with child .. no hard trails ...but also not to easy so its always fun. If you are ... [More...]
2016-04-12, 4:50 AMUnvergessliche Trekking-Tour in Chiang Mai!
Judith, GER
Die 3-Tages-Tour war für uns 10 Personen unvergesslich und ein tolles Naturerlebnisabenteuer. Hat sich voll gelohnt und können wir weiter empfehlen!
2016-04-05, 2:29 AMDas Highlight unseres Thailand-Urlaubs mit unserem Guide Ping!
Bruno & Christine, GER
Wir( Paar), haben die 3 Tagestour mit Ping als Guide gemacht und ich muss sagen es war eine der tollsten Erfahrungen unseres Lebens. Trotz einstündiger Verspätung wurden wir schon von Jit und Ping herzlichst empfangen. Schon auf der Fahrt zu Jits Gästehaus entstand ein wunderbarer Kontakt. Nach ... [More...]
2016-03-31, 6:27 PMEin super cooles Erlebnis
Atlanta, GER
von der ersten Minute an , wo Mike persönlich in unser hostel kam , hat es super viel spass gemacht. Wir haben alles erst besprochen und wir hatten das Glück nur zu zweit mit ihm zu wandern , weil gerade niemand zu dem Termin sonst gebucht hatte. Wir haben viel über die einheimischen gelernt , es ... [More...]
2016-03-21, 12:06 AMTerrific and memorable trekking
Soobhaschand Bhojoo, Mauritius
I was in the company of other tourists namely Astride ( Austria), Anthony and Corinne ( French couple), Joseph and Beatrice ( Swiss couple).The tour is good value for money compared to other tours which may be cheaper but are not to the required standard as they do not do the full circle but return on ... [More...]
2016-03-16, 3:39 PMEin tolles Trekking-Erlebnis
Ana und Norbert, GER
Die 3-Tagestour mit insgesamt 9 Personen war toll. Das Essen war super, die Wanderung durch die Wälder mit Erläuterungen von unserm Guide Mike zur Natur und Geschichte der "Karen", der selber dort aufgewachsen ist, war ein Erlebnis. Vor allem die Bambusfloßfahrt war, sehr empfehlenswert. Ana und Norbert
2016-03-13, 9:46 PMFantastische Trekking-Tour
Carol, GER
Die 3-Tages Tour war einfach nur fantastisch! Meine Erwartungen wurden definitiv übertroffen! Piroon, unser Tourguide, steckte so viel Leidenschaft und Herzblut in diese Tour. Das Essen, Frühstück, Mittagessen, Abendessen, alles war überragend lecker! Das Preis-Leistungverhältnis stimmt absolut. ... [More...]
2016-03-11, 12:55 PMFantastic trekking tour!
Sina
We went on a 3 day 2 night trekking tour with Mike and it was a wonderful experience!! We stayed in two different villages and Mike was so kind to explain everything (how people work, cook and so on without electricity). the elephant ride was fantastic and we had a lot of fun on the bamboo raft. Thank ... [More...]
2016-02-08, 5:38 PMHardly recommended trekking tour!
Annika
I went with a friend for a few days to Chiang Mai. We wanted to make a 2 day trekking tour with an overnight stay. We found Chiang Mai trekking in the internet and decided for due to the very good valuations. We asked Jit to organize a tour very spontaneous (a day after) and she made it happen. Our guide ... [More...]
2016-01-20, 7:31 PMThis trekking is a real dream!
Sebastien & Nolwenn
Perfect tour. Jit, thank you so much for all you've done for us, you're fantastic !!! You made our last few days a real dream. All the best for you and Piroon ! Sebastien & Nolwenn
Chiang Mai Trekking - memories of our guests
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