Saturday, October 28, 2006

Chang Mai (Trek day 1, 2, 3)

Arrived at 7 am in chang mai, dropped off by the bus and ushered into a random taxi (a glorified truck with benches in the back of it). All crowded in we ended up at the site where the tour started. Having met two irish boys on the bus they let me kip in their room for a couple hours before the trek began. Again, ushered into the glorified truck to head off for elephant riding!



We arrived just intime to drop our bags and get onto the elephants..
Me and Claire, a welsh girl who I made friends with shared an elephant, feeding it sugar cane and taking turns riding on its head..










We rode through the jungle,





Later we trekked through the jungle and bathed in the waterfall



See the middle? Yeah, i was under that.. right there.. being drenched by a waterfall. AMAZING.

We then trekked for 2 hours through rice fields and jungle..


Then we arrived at the hilltribe we were going to sleep at. We met the locals who all lived in houses on stilts to avoid the heavy rain floods..


The children and ladies came to try and sell us their handmade crafts.. The children had necklaces and the women had their handmade scarves that they wove themselves... just like the clothes they wore.





We slept in a little bungalow thing on foutons, and the next day began what promised to be a four hour jungle trek, but ended up being six hours of climbing through the mountains of the jungle. With a broken backpack.. and blisters.. and mud.. and mosquitos..
It was hard. SO VERY VERY HARD, we were all dying. And when we got to the top we were given lunch wrapped in leaves, and ate it with chopsticks made out of bamboo we cut along the way..

I ate so fast.. and so much:


Sleep was DEFINITELY welcomed that night as we camped in the jungle, using the river to shower in..

The next day we trekked for another two hours and reached the river where we would float down on a bamboo raft..


The guides kept shouting "NO WET NO FUN!" and we got soaked, pushed and thrown over board, wrestling and playing in the warm river waters. We got through the rapids to a place where you could dive in the deeper water, so we all climbed up the rocks and jumped off.. no wet, no fun!



We arrived back to Chang Mai where me and claire shared a room, and met up with the irish guys from the busride from bangkok, and all headed to the night market. Lots and lots of things to buy, not enough time, but we bartered and haggled and I finally got a new backpack to make up for the monsterous broken one i had bought in Africa.

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