Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
The next day, the pick up truck arrived with Sam and Henry already inside. We then picked up an Irish couple, 2 French guys and a French guy with his mum. They turned out to be really nice as we quickly made friends over the next couple of days.
After a kerfuffle with our luggage (I thought they would take them from us instantly, but they locked them in a shop later on in our trek) we set off. After an hour bumpy trek, we arrived at a butterfly farm which was used more as a toilet pit stop than a tour and then we were off again to a super smelly market to pick up supplies for our trip. There were flies everywhere, chicken feet, the whole works for a foreign market. After another couple of bumpy hours, we arrived at our first activity - the elephant camp.
It was at this point I got unhappy. I realised that the elephants were having to trek uphill with us on their backs and they were having to be coaxed with bananas. Then the man got out a hook and started poking poor Nelly's ears with the end of it to prevent him from stopping. I made movements to get off, but I was trapped between Charlotte and Gemma and it was along way down. The compromise was for me to sit on Nelly's back where the man had previously sat and for the man to get down. I felt a lot better - firstly I was no longer sat on the awkward seat on his back that was blatantly cutting into him and secondly, it prevented the man from using the hook. Me and Nelly bonded with the use of bananas as I clung on for dear life. It was a pretty scary experience as we teetered dangerously towards the edge of the mountain but I knew that the only way out of the experience was to continue and try to swallow my feelings of ethics and morals for animal cruelty.
Next, we stopped for lunch after a quick zip wire over a river where we enjoyed rice and chicken wrapped up in vine leaves. We then left the hut best to the river and made our way onto the first part of our trek.
I would like to say that I'm well practiced with trekking, having been trekking in America with Tom last March, but this was pretty arduous. It was all uphill with our smaller rucksacks on our back and only the limited water we were able to carry. Our tour guide was also pretty mental as he kept trying to catch spiders to show us by diving his hand down inside holes that were clearly homes to spiders. After 10 minutes hacking at one particular hole to display a spider, he finally gave up much to everyone's relief (I kinda wanted to see the spider!) and we continued the slow uphill slog. It was slow going with many breaks as we made our way up but finally we made it to our Lahu village in the hill tops. It was absolutely stunning and was the perfect time of evening to enjoy the cool breeze and the views with a cold bottle of Chang. Our hut was pretty basic with only bamboo mats on the floor but it was still beautiful and had lovely mosquito nets to cover us at night. They gave us some smelly rugs as blankets that we immediately chucked to one side as they ponged so badly but we were soon glad for them in the cooler earlier hours of the morning.
The rest of the evening was spent getting to know our trek group more, drinking Chang and eating the most amazing curry, (which we've since learned how to cook in Pai). As the sun set it felt amazing to be sat on the hjlltop, with a fire crackling and chatting away to the new people (and practicing mine and Gemma's French much to their amusement!) After some tetchy visits to the toilets and showers that were squats and filled with spiders, we all retired under the mossie nets for the night. Gemma managed to twist herself round in her sleep and steal my cover and Charlotte managed to get her whole head out of the mossie net and I had to pull her back in. Surprisingly in the morning there were very few mosquito injuries, though that's probably thanks to the nets and aphyxiating ourselves with repellant!
- comments