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4 - 5 November
Chaing Mai
KIM: Up bright and early, we had breakfast and were collected for what was sure to be the highlight of our trip in the North. Our two day, one night hill tribe trek… where herein I'll refer to to as our Jungle trek as we didn't see much of our hill tribe, besides spending the night in their camp with the most amazing views of the jungle below. But first - the trek…
We set off fairly slowly, stopping at an Orchid and butterfly farm (which in my personal opinion was a bit sad that they breed butterflies just to freeze them in order glaze them and put a gold edging on them and sell them as brooches - cruelty to animals!). After another stop at a market (this was soon turning into a 1 day 1 night trek) we were on our way to our drop off point.
And their they were… our new form of transportation for the next hour - our elephants! Quickly and easily we all boarded our ellies (which are much kinder and gentler than the one that charged us in Botswana) and headed out down to the river (where they drank water and played - with us on their backs) and through the jungle. It was quite an amazing experience. Although white knuckled to begin with I quickly became used to our ellie, and even laughed and let go of the rail when the ellie behind us decided to shove his trunk into my back for a bit of a sniff.
Elephant trek down, we had some lunch (rice) and put on our walking shoes. And so three hours of jungle trekking began.
Trying to put into words the feeling of walking through this amazing landscape with no one else around is quite a task. Between the coco palms and yellow and green grass fields, streams and dense jungle vegetation - in a moment of pure amazement, I stopped and claimed to Mark that this is one of the most amazing experiences of my life. And it was. Apart from diving at White Rock, I loved every (exhausting) minute of trekking. It took a lot from me to climb for 3 hours to 1,200 meters above sea level on this holiday, but the view from the Hill tribe camp was beyond rewarding.
The shower was less rewarding. Absolutely filthy we were assured of running water up at the camp. However, this wasn't the case, and granted we couldn't really complain - it is after all still the middle of the jungle. Buckets of ice cold water would have to do for a bit of a Roman Shower.
Spinning two tiny children around before dinner, everyone else in the group took up the offer of having massages (something they all regretted as these hill tribe people have never ventured down into civilization and therefore aren't really trained in massage)
Dinner was actually something to write home about (which is why I am writing home about it) - a coconut and pumpkin soup followed by some delicious stir-fry. As the temperature dropped, the beer flowed and games of theme master and broken telephone (??) continued - which when you have a group of American, Spanish, South African (yours truly), Dutch and French combined caused heaps of lost in translation moments but none-the-less it was a really enjoyable evening! Sarah - the great campaigner for Hawkins babies… Jake and Bake (actually Bank, but Mark managed to announce the wrong name in his toast) - the newly weds on honeymoon and Frank, the French schoolmaster… all making the group the (as Heidi would say) BEST GROUP EVER!
Our bedroom consisted of about 12 double (thin) mattresses spaced out on the floor, each with mosquito nets. We all fell asleep quite peacefully, but it wasn't a restful night for some. Mark - who didn't realize the temperatures plummeted up in the mountains, had no warm clothes and so was desperately trying to snuggle to keep warm. Me, who had plenty of warm clothes along but absolutely covered in mosquito bites coupled with hip bones that never seem to stick out normally but suddenly decide to when you're sleeping on a hard floor! When the c*** crowed with dawn (and every few moments after that) we both welcomed morning.
Breakfast was a treat with hard boiled eggs, toast and jam and even a cup of coffee. As our host greeted us with his addidas jacket on, I realized that perhaps our Lehu hill tribe do make it down to civilization from time to time…
On with the trek, the downhill walk was probably more hard work than the uphill. Aching knees... we really are getting old. Slipping and sliding down the mountain side and walking through bamboo plantations and over lines and lines of ants (conquering my fears slightly) we could hear the crushing of the waterfall getting louder and louder and as we rounded the bend we were in delight. Ice cold as it was, we splashed around and put our great little underwater camera to work again.
On with the trek, we followed the path of the river down the rest of the mountain and made our way to the River Rafting base camp. Back into bikinis and boardies, we made teams of six and learnt our commands for the rafting. Having a captain on board to do the thinking, we were left to just paddle when he said so, stop when he said and also 'get down' over the bigger rapids. It was SO much fun!! I loved it and was sad to be climbing off our raft and onto our bamboo raft for the remaining of the journey. Especially as our bamboo raft had obviously sprung a leak - we definitely were sinking!!
After some lunch (pad thai!) we made our way back to Chiang Mai. Exhausted and thrilled with our adventure. We met up with the trekking group that evening for dinner and a bit of Thai traditional dancing. Everyone so knackered, it was an early night.
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