Trekking and Buckets
Trip Start
Oct 17, 2007
1
4
19
Trip End
Mar 14, 2008
Chiang Mai,
Thailand
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
The next day we left on our trek at about 9:30 in the morning. Our group wound up being 12 people which was a bit big, but it was a pretty interesting group. It was the two of us, two Canadian girls who played the mandolin, two older Spanish couples, an Austrian girl, a 60 year-old (or older) South African woman and the heroes of the trip Dan and Matt from South Africa and the UK and our two guides King and Nooka who were both hilarious.
The first day was a lot of driving and then a six km walk on a path through the jungle. We were at about 1000m elevation so it was a lot cooler than in Chiang Mai which made the humidity a lot easier to handle. The views were pretty amazing, I've got some pretty decent photos that I'll put up eventually. When we got to the village and started to hear the sounds of the cows and and pigs and chickens I got the strangest thought in my head. I imagined that all of the sounds were on a CD being played through loudspeakers on a loop like some sort of a Disneyland attraction... I didn't actually think that, but you know what I mean. I felt sort of guilty walking through these people's village and through their backyards. It turned out that we mostly stuck to ourselves though and had limited contact with the villagers and our guide told us that the tours benefit the villagers (which I'm still a little skeptical about). So I got over it.
The next day was a lot better, we way more of an intense walk through the jungle going through rice paddies and up some pretty steep hills for about 10 km before we got to the elephant camp. I'd never seen an elephant before so my first thought was holy shit those guys are huge! Our guide told us to look at one of the elephants because he had a "fifth leg." Took me a second to realize what she meant then I looked between its legs and got the joke. Haha, got a close-up pic of that too. The elephant ride was really uncomfortable and the handlers weren't very nice to the elephants so if I had the choice I wouldn't do the elephant ride again. I would have rather just hang out with them than ride them. Once we got to the second village we went for a swim in the river and then had an intense game of soccer with the local villagers. They were pretty impressive especially considering that they weren't wearing any shoes. That night we stayed up late playing drinking games with Dan and Matt and our guides (the rest of the group copped out and went to bed). We learned a pretty sweet new card game called shithead which we'll have to bring home.
The next day we went on a four-hour bamboo rafting trip. I was expecting a chilled out Penticton channel-esque experience, but it turned out that we had to steer the raft with bamboo poles through some pretty intense rapids. A couple of times I thought the rafts were going to break apart, but it wound up being a lot of fun. The scenery was unbelievable as well. We were on a narrow river with lush jungle on either side of us going up several hundred feet. Makes me wish I had gotten that waterproof camera case (might still get one....)
We got back and were pretty exhausted so we took a nap and then met up with Dan and Matt to watch some soccer and wound up having our first experience with Thai Whisky buckets and the next thing we knew we were crashing at our guesthouse at 5 in the morning. The next day we went to the same place to start the night and watch some soccer with the same guys and it turned out that the owner of the bar was a Sig from Texas who came and shook my hand because I was wearing the beer pong shirt. We wound up getting a free round of beers which was really nice of him, small world... Then we went to the rooftop bar which was a really chilled out place on the rooftop (obviously) with fluorescent paint all over the walls and black lights (thanks for the tip Muff). Next thing we knew we were at a Thai discotheque and in bed at 7am again (sorry mom and dad!) I had a bit of an adventure with a really sketchy toilet in that club and let's just say that it's hard to use a Western toilet as a squat toilet and the spray guns they have in place of toilet paper can be as powerful as fire-hoses... I'll leave the rest up to your imagination... It was great times hanging out with those guys and we're going to meet up with them in a couple months in the south, but we definitely need a bit of a break from partying for a while.
Other than that all is well, although I've been having some intense ring of fire, but no big deal. It was sort of nice seeing daylight again today as well. We're still sorting out our plans, but sounds like we're heading to the small town of Pai maybe tomorrow and from there into Laos and from then on wherever the wind takes us...
Happy Halloween!
Dylan
