Up early for the trek, grabbed some brekkie and headed off in the trucks. In my group was 2 Spanish guys, an English couple, 2 German girls and a guy from Argentina.
We stopped at a market to go to the toilet and buy some essentials (poncho). I ate some pineapple and mango then we headed off again. We arrived at our destination shortly after and the trekking began.
About an hour into it, all was going well, wasn't too hard and nobody was struggling. We stopped for lunch which was vegetable fried rice wrapped in a banana leaf - delicious! Once everyone had had their fill we set off heading for the waterfall.
As we were walking along (trek getting a bit tougher now) our guide, Jay Jay stopped suddenly - SNAKE!!!!! All the guys moved forward to have a look, all the girls backed away slowly. Jay Jay threw a stone at it then tried to move it with a stick, nothing. 'its sleeping' Jay Jay announced, meaning it's dead - PHEW! I still passed it anxiously incase it was just 'playing dead'.
The dead snake made me very aware of the fact that we could come across anything in the jungle especially big spiders, oh dear. As I was terrifying myself with the thought of the spider we were going to meet my stomach began to grumble - OH NO, this cannot be happening here!
The next stop is 50mins away. Ok I can hold it, maybe it's just wind, but who wants to run the risk of trying that?! I carried on trying not to think about my impending doom. The grumbling continued, suddenly we stopped again, my worst fear was unfolding now - a SPIDER!
This wasn't just any spider this was an M&S spider, bigger than my hand and just hanging in mid air on its massive web, waiting for its next innocent pray. Luckily Kas was my hero and Stood closer to the spider so I could pass behind him but then everyone wanted to take pictures. Can you please hurry up! I wanted to be as far away from this spider as possible not flashing lights in its face, pissing the giant off. I later discovered it was poisonous.
I don't know if it was the spider or I had just held it in as long as possible but the grumbling in my stomach was getting a lot worse and I knew I had to go NOW! Jay Jay told me to just go anywhere I could find. Now having just seen a snake and a big assed spider the last thing I wanted to do was be alone in the jungle but I couldn't exactly ask anyone to come with me, this situation was embarrassing enough in front of my recent acquaintances.
Whilst wishing I had Dorothy's red shoes on so I could be magically taken home I noticed a spider on the ground heading my way, it was a baby compared to the last one but this one was moving! My only reassurance was it wouldn't want to come any closer once it realised what it was about to head into. I cleaned myself up, quickly got back to the group and took an Imodium plus - lifesaver.
Finally we got to the waterfall, it was absolutely stunning. We were all dripping with sweat so quickly got changed into out swim wear and went in. There was a cave you could walk in behind the waterfall then walk through which I decided would be fun, Javier and myself holding hands we went for it. As we came out the other side I realised the force of the waterfall had pulled my bikini top off and everyone was getting an eye full!
So much for a good first impression, all these people are going to remember me as the Scottish girl who took a crap in the jungle then flashed her boobs to everyone, I just had to laugh! The water was so cool and we were all enjoying the relief from the jungle heat. We had a good 30-40 minutes then set off again, this time heading for our destination, the village we would be sleeping in.
The trekking was pretty hard going as the ground was slippery and a lot of the paths were only wide enough for one person, sometimes half a person with a massive drop and not much to hold onto. Health and safety doesn't exist in Thailand especially not in the jungle but we got to the village in one piece.
The village consisted of 5/6 wooden huts with a dinning area in the middle, there was a small river close by you could have a wash in and a toilet which was another hole in the floor with a million various bugs in it. I will never complain about a portaloo again - luxury in comparison.
We all sat around the large table and chatted about the trek so far, it was a good mix of people and we had a laugh together. Dinner was lovely and we had a few chang's to celebrate our survival. Jay Jay chatted with us telling stories about other treks and the Thai lifestyle which was nice. Another guy brought out a Thai flute like thing and we all had a shot, it made a nice noise. We were all pretty knackered so went to bed around 10pm.
The mosquito nets had holes in them and we were sleeping on a mattress on the floor which wasn't the cleanest thing I'd ever seen but it was a bed. I was rather nervous about sleeping in the wooden shack as anything could get in (like big hairy spiders) I weighed the mosquito net down with blankets so it was a bit more secure then tried to sleep.
I woke up regularly to noises of something big and heavy crawling on the roof which I can only imagine was spiders but I reassured myself that my mosquito net would keep them from getting to me. A toilet stop in the middle of the night happened outside as I didn't want to share the hole in the floor with anything that was there first.
Things I miss: health and safety, standard toilets!