So three days ago we woke up in our clean and comfy room, we packed tank tops shorts, sun screen, bug spray, and a tooth brush and waited to be picked up for our three day long trek... little did we know what we had really gotten ourselves into. Here is a before picture:
The first day eleven people climbed into the truck bed of a little toyota and drove for about an hour or two up the windey roads of northern Thailand. Midway through the drive it started to rain, thank god for the canopy covering the truck bed. We first arrived at an elephant sanctuary. Our group paired up and climbed onto the backs of elephants with a small Thai man sitting on the elephant's head as our driver. Right way we entered a remote jungle trail at a steady pace as the elephants moved forward in a train. Iulia's elephant got super pissed and wound up not following the trail, he started growling and following his own path. Jamie and I were frightened for her but thankful that our elopement didn't feel like going on her own adventure with us on her back. Two of the elephants had babies and they followed the group making their way up and down the muddy trail. In all we rode for about an hour. We went though a small village and a small river. It was much more amazing then expected.
After a quick lunch of fried rice we piled back into the truck and drove to our drop off point. Our guide (a very small Thai man with long flowing hair who liked to sing songs to us) told us we would be hiking about two hours to a waterfall where we would take a break before continuing to our village. About ten min. into our walk it started to pour. Luckily I had bought a bright yellow poncho for 25 baht on our drive up. We continued on in the pouring rain. The ground was a thick red clay that became very slippery,under my poncho in the heat/ rain sweat dripped down my back. It was great.In this first part of our trek we walked on what seemed like a real trail, all too quickly we started to follow a steeper trail that narrowed as we moved forward. The cidedas sounded like chainsaws as we moved deeper into the jungle, soon we were following a river and then we were ducking under fallen bamboo. Finally at the waterfall we all shed our soaked clothes and jumped into the refreshing water. Our group of eleven consisted of us three girls, two girls my age from England(imagine right out of "the office" England's version) a couple from Spain in their late 30's, a fun Kiwi girl, a couple from the Check Republic, and my favorite a crazy Serbian gypsy lady who lives in Germany, and is almost 60. Somehow we ended up calling her Mama, not necessarily an endearment. When we got started again we headed straight uphill to a Karen village. Our guide, Neo, led us through the many raised bamboo huts to own own. This consisted of a front porch-like thing with a big wooden table and then a row of cubicle-like "rooms" for us to sleep.See the picture of the roof, way cool:
The outhouse was about 25 feet away and included an uphill jump, downhill jump and lots of muddy walking to reach. By this time we were all wet and tired, to say the least of the hole trip we never got dry. Dinner was prepared and then we all went to bed as there were not lights to see or do anything. We slept on "mats" under mosquito nets, and to be honest it was the most uncomfortable night of my life. The next day Iulia and I woke up to see the sunrise and do Yoga. We were served a breakfast of one boiled egg and four slices of white bread each. yum. The next few hours of hiking were almost all uphill but at least it didn't rain. After we left the village were were surrounded but nothing but jungle and rice paddies. We stopped for lunch with a nice family who cooked us noodles and tried to sell us their crafts. I had already bought a beautiful hand woven scarf from an older woman at the last village so didn't get anything. We hiked to two more waterfalls and took a bath in one. The villagers set up houses by the waterfalls so that when tourist come they can sell them water or goods. Their houses are made out of lumber or bamboo and consist of one room. Off to the side of the room they make some sort of charcoal fire where they do their cooking. All of the houses are raised several feet off of the ground. Some of then have little huts off to the side where I imagine family members sleep. Everyone was very gracious and seemed unbothered by us passing through.
Our second house was a little bigger and more centrally located, instead of a bananna leaf roof it was wooden. Again dinner was served by candle light and we went to bed early. By this time "Mama," was running around asking villagers to cut down bamboo and cook it for us, and hunting up star fruit and papya for us to eat(though she coudn't ever find any ripe...yum) The days treking had been hard but the waterfalls amazing. The third day was maybe the hardest because we knew we were so close to a shower. We hiked straight uphill, then straight, then straight downhill. It was probably the hottest day but we ended up on a tall mountain overlooking the green hills. After another waterfall swim we bamboo rafted down a river for an hour or so before being picked up and driven home to Chiang Mai. And that my friends, was the jungle.
