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Reached Bangkok safely last Friday and had 24 hours to myself before meeting my new group and starting the trek. Met the group Saturday evening and majority were fresh out of School and on their gap year. Our guide this time was a local Thai man called Pipith. You can not lead in Thailand unless you are Thai, which is good as it keeps the work within the local community. We had an overnight train to Chiang Mai. These are very different to the ones I have been on in Vietnam as instead of four berth cabins there is just one big corridor of beds. In a way it was much better as you have more space and could talk to everyone and not just those in your room. We arrived Chiang Mai and spent the day at an elephant reserve and a Tiger place, which was nice but it all felt a bit zoo like and the elephants performed a show for us. Even though they have all been rescued from the logging industry something just did not seem natural about them kicking giant footballs into goals.
The next day started early with a drive to a local waterfall for a swim. We then started out trek. To be honest it was not quite what I expected as the itinerary said it would be 4 -5 hours of walking a day. On our first day we only did 2 hours before reaching our first village. Although 2 hours in 44oC heat was quite enough for me, especially when majority of it was uphill. The village accommodation was very basic but comfortable enough and we had a local guide with us who spoke the village language of Karin. They were all very friendly and the food they gave us was amazing, the best food I have had in Thailand so far. Second day we had a 4 hour walk to the elephant sanctuary. The walk went well with one mega hill, which was 1km long and took quite a while to climb in the heat. The walk was mainly through forests but was a clear path throughout. Unfortunately you spend so long watching where your feet are going you forget to look around and enjoy the scenery!
After lunch we had a 2 hour trek on the back on the elephant to our next village. This was actually quite scary as they are such big powerful creatures! You can’t really appreciate their size until you are standing next to them! There were two of us on each elephant and I was on a mother whose baby followed us throughout. It was an interesting experience although not the most comfortable ride ever! The second village was similar to the first and we had lots of fun that evening playing local games, which if you got wrong you were marked with ash on your face! Majority of us ended up with glasses and moustaches on us!
The final day was the hardest to be honest….6.5 hours on a bamboo raft. Ours was about 20ft long and about 15 bamboo shoots wide. There were 5 people on our raft and our bags hung from a tepee shaped structure in the middle. The rafts don’t really float but are partially submerged so you get wet very quickly. Balance was essential for standing on the rafts as there is nothing to hold on to just your bamboo stick for steering. The water levels were very low (barely knee deep in some places) and so it took us ages to navigate through the rapids as we kept lodging on rocks etc. At one point a tree had fallen across the entire river which meant everyone had to help lift each raft over the trunk. It surprising how heavy bamboo is when full of water!! We passed lot of water buffalo in the river and also the odd snake! Was a great experience but being on the back of the raft meant that I ended up helping to steer through the rapids and after 6.5 hours I could barely lift my arms. Apparently people normally loose around 3kg in weight on this trip…which is fine with me.
Back in Bangkok now…no sign of the trouble so far. Meeting a new group tonight, which I am pleased about as although the girls were all very nice some of them had a lot of growing up to do. I also could not believe how rude they were to our guide at times especially when he was talking and they constantly questioning his actions. I was very good and did not say anything as I think some of them definitely needed to be put in their place…but I will let life at university do that for them!
Off to Krabi tomorrow night on another overnight train. This should be beach time which after the trek I feel I deserve. Won’t be returning to Bangkok after tomorrow which I am quite please about. After Krabi I head to Malaysia and then Singapore. Whoop Whoop
Love to all
Rhi xxx
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