Day 9 - Could go either way....

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Alarm goes off at 7am! We've booked and paid for our day trip so I'm gonna give it a go. Jump straight in the shower and it seems like the Hangover Devil wasn't too mean this time! We get ready and are waiting in reception at 8.20 as instructed 😊 We both skip breakfast as we're not sure if we can stomach it (Hangover Devil didn't let us off completely scot free) and its 8.55 before our driver comes to collect us. There's a bit of confusion, he thought he was picking up one person not two, he thought they were in room 203 not 302, and we're a bit surprised that its only a small MPV rather than a mini van picking us up for a day trip. We jump in anyway and he drives us about 5 minutes away and pulls up to a COOKING SCHOOL! My brian's a bit slow so it takes it takes a few minutes for everyone to cop on that this is not right! Turns out the driver was supposed to pick up the girl from 203 for a cooking course, not us at all! So he brings us back and we have to wait for our real driver to come back for us, the mini van had come looking for us in the 10 minutes that we took the little detour! Not to worry, it was all Ok in the end, we got on the right trip!

There are 9 people on our trip, 2 Italians, 2 English, 2 Swiss, 1 Spanish, and myself and Rosie. We fell asleep again the minute we got in the mini bus! We are in the oldest, most rickity little mini van in the world! there are cracks in the windscreen held together with butterfly stickers, there's little bit of moss around the windows, its not very comfortable, but we still managed a few Zzz's! We have a guide and a driver with us! The driver is MENTAL! he is the most dangerous driver ever, making space where there is none and overtaking on bends! He is also VERY fond of beeping his horn and waving to almost everyone we pass! "hello we're trying to sleep here!". Anyway we drive for around and hour to Doi Inthanon national park. First activity is Bamboo rafting. It was actually a great hangover cure, it was a little bit wobbly getting on the raft and you have to sit your ass in the water, but it's so relaxing, you just flow down the river with this local boy at the front standing up directing the raft with a stick of bamboo. We spend about half an hour floating down the river. When we get off the raft we have to climb up the river bank up to the roadside, it's not too steep, but its real muddy so it's hard enough. The soil is real red as well and we're in our bare feet, so by the time we make it up to the top we're filthy! And there wasn't even a tap to wash our hands! Eww! There was a little snake sitting under a bench, but we just avoided that! Next stop was an Elephant Trek. I wouldn't recommend doing this to anyone, like it's nice to see the elephants, and there was a cute baby elep hant, but we have to get on the elephant from a height stepping on him and OMG the little seat that you get in is SO uncomfortable! I don't think anyone in our group actually liked the elephant trek, we went across the river and up and down the cliffs through the jungle, but your spine aches from the back of the seat when you're going up, and you feel like you've hang on for dear life going down! There was just nothing nice about it at all, made mush worse by the fact that we had to go under a spider web on the way back containing the HUGEST spider ever!!! Agghh!!

Next we travel on to some little "restaurant" for lunch. There's basically a few of these all lined up together to cater for the tourists and the meal is included in the cost of the tour. It's all a bit commercial! they put our some rice, chicken massaman curry (not a patch on Rosie's - Seriously) and some type of spicy vegetables, followed by fresh pineapple (this was yummy). we stay there for about 40 mins and head off again for the next part of our trip. Next stop in Karen village, which homes one of the hill tribes, there were just a few huts with women in their traditional dress who were going about there day to day business, mostly making clothes and arts and crafts. It was grand but nothing life changing! So from there we take a little trek to one of the waterfalls in the park. This part was really nice, we went through rice fields and up and down a few cliffs (nothing too scary), through some forest and eventually down loads of really steep steps to the bottom of the waterfall. Down there we can cross a man0made wooden bridge thing and if we wish get into the bottom of the water fall for a swim, a few of our group do this, but Rosie and I and a couple of others opt out, mostly because we don't have a huge amount of time, and fro Rosie and I, we'll have loads of waterfalls on the rest of our trip! It's a really picturesque place so we're happy to just have a little wander and a sit down to take it all in anyway. After a while we have to make our way back to the minivan, this means going back UP all those steep steps! It's tough especially in the humidity, but think that all our farmers walks at boot camp stood to me and Rosie ;o) It starts raining a bit on our way back to the van, but it's not too bad! Back in the van we go and we're dropped back to our guest house at about 5ish. We really enjoyed the day overall, but if wouldn't be bothered with the Elephants again, and meeting the hill tribe is ok but there's not much interaction. The trek, waterfall and bamboo rafting more than made up for those though!

When we get back to our room, we are filthy dirty, covered in red muck and all sorts! Gross! Two hot showers later and we're back to normality! I have discovered throughout the course of the day that I have 8 mosquito bites, 6 of these on my right foot and 4 are on my big toe!! Oh jesus I want to cut my foot off it's so itchy 😞 I must have missed that foot with the insect repellent yesterday!!

We are starving (neither of us ate much of the lunch) so we head to an Italian/Thai restaurant just doen the road called 'Prego' for some din dins! It was yum and for around €8 we got Lasagne, steamed fish, 2 waters and 2 cokes (out of glass bottles -it's the best!). After dinner we head east to the Riverside bar, we said we'd meet Gemma and Charlie from last night for a drink. We go in and there's a deadly live band playing, but it's totally and we're getting serious dagger looks cos we're trying to make our way over to the bar and there really isn't room! we decide to just head down the road instead to a bar/restaurant called The Good View. The also have a live band playing who are really good and we are shown to nice big table, Gemma and Charlie meet us there instead! We learned from our mistakes last night so we really only had a couple of drinks (although the one's Charlie chose had about 7 types of alcohol in each! By the end of the night have the locals are up strutting their stuff on stage with the band! I think the Thai's really let their hair down at the weekend! They are heading to Phuket tomorrow, so we say good night and go our separate ways in tuk tuks! Into bed at about 2am, but not nearly as tipsy as last night, so we've no fear about facing tmw!

Until next time,
Gxx

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