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Hello,
Day Two of trekking was a hellish but pretty amazing experience! We got up at 8am for weird scrambled eggs and toast and jam. Then at 9 we set off on hour 5 hour trek up and down two mountains. The terrain was difficult which resulted in me falling in a river and falling down the mountain on my bum twice. Mr Sammy then made me a special stick out of bamboo to stop me from falling.
I saw lots of really cool insects with some spiders bigger than my hand. After three and a half hours of walking we stopped for lunch at some huts. We shared the space with about 10 Buffalo's who were swimming opposite us. Our guides had carved chop sticks along the way and wrapped our noodles in huge leaves tied with bamboo.
We set off again and I stayed at the front so I could see where Tui was stepping, as I did not want to fall over anymore! We scaled sheer cliffs (not very high) and waded through water but one hour later we were finally at the tribe. This was a bigger tribe which had its own school that had been sponsered by the King's daughter.
Our hut was much more spacious than the previous one and even had a veranda we could sit around. Most of the girls were pretty sweaty at this point and covered in mud so we all decided to have showers in the stream/mini waterfall. The only other options was using a bucket in the outhouse or go swimming with the buffalo in the lake.
That evening we ate our tea and had a look around the village and school. The school was a boarding school so many children from neighbouring villages stayed there Sunday Evening to Friday Lunchtime before getting picked up in a moterbike. The school was basic with blackboards but also had old fashioned televisions.
Back at the hut, some of us stayed awake to play Ping Pang Pong with Mr Sammy and Ooh La La. This game consisted of the first person saying 'ping', the second person saying 'pong' and when the third person says 'pong' they have to point at someone else in the circle. The person pointed at then has to make a cheesy grin and the two people either side of them has to raise their hands up and shout 'hey'. If you mess up any part of it, Ooh La La comes over with draws on your face with charcoal e.g. moustache, monobrow, glasses etc. For those who know how blonde I am, you can just imagine what I looked like by the end of the game.
After a midnight dash to the outhouse thoroughly checking for any of the 5 deadly Thai snakes that live in the area, I retreated to bed. Unfortunately, a rather cheeky Sticcado made so much noise I barely got any sleep.
The next day we bamboo rafted all the way down the river and go absolutely soaked. When we first got on we sunk and the men had to tie more bamboo to the raft for us to float. We sung songs all the way down and a couple of us decided just to swim along with the raft in the muddy brown water.
We arrived back at Chiang Mai where I arranged to meet Madeline and Chris in the evening. We met in a bar and I had Chicken burger and chips as I was noodled out! It was very lovely seeing familiar faces and helped me not to miss home too much.
I spent the whole of the next day sun bathing which was bliss!! I met Madeline for a couple of hours more before hopping on the night train to Bangkok..
My next stop is Kao San National Park in the south.. so will update in a few days.
Miss and love you xxx
- comments
mum wow, amazing amazing!! Looks like Ping Pang Pong is the new game for xmas then!!
Ali Sproson Hanz - ever thought about being a travel journalist?? Your blogs are truly fab!! x p.s. I thought you'd be ue to weird scrambled eggs... living with your Mum..ha ha ha x