Day 69 to 71 - Chiang Mai Trek

This 3 day trek did not start off that well. Firstly we had handed copies of our passports to the booking office as everyone doing a trek now needs to be registered. The van picked us up and then when they did the passport checks to make sure they had all the right people, the guy at the booking office and given them the wrong passports copies. It ended up that he had lost them so everyone had to wait for us whilst we fetched ours. We took a 2 hour drive to the start of the trek to have dinner, then started the walk. the guide still hadn't introduced himself to us, and he left without 3 people who where in the toilet - great, this was going to be good! We walked about 3 hours uphill, it was quite hard as it was very hot, but the group did stop often for rests. Shelley kept getting annoyed because the guide was only telling the people at the front information about the local flora and fauna. Eventually we arrived at the village on top of a mountain that we were stopping at, where the guide left half the group and walked ahead with the rest, so we had to find the hut we were stopping at by ourselves. When we eventually found them all, shelley told him that he should wait for his group, he apologised in a fashion, asked her not to be mad with him, then after that things got much better, (a good telling off from shelley was all he needed). His name was Mok by the way. After very cold showers in wooden huts, we all enjoyed tea as the sun set. There was no electricity so everything was done in candlelight. Some of the children at the village tok a liking to Shelley, so she plalyed with a couple for a while. Mok played some songs on his guitar, and sang a little, other people had a go too, games were played, many beers were drank and friends were made. It was an amazing relaxed night under a sky full of bright stars.

The next morning we were up about 8am, then left about 10am for a 2 hour walk to a waterfall and dinner. Shelley struggled with this as it was very hard downhill walking. It didn't bother Phil at all. Phil showered underneath a powerfull waterfall, and Shelley skipped that part and just paddled. After a little siesta we all took a much easier down hill walk to the place we were stopping that night. Phil and a couple of the other lads spent some time in the river then everyone had tea. Half the group were in bed by 8pm, but we stayed up with 4 lads till about midnight chatting around the camp fire. It was very relaxing and once again, a memorable night.

Today we did no walking, which Shelley was well chuffed about because the tops of her legs were very painful from walking downhill yesterday. The first activity of the day was an elephant ride, as we had already spent 3 days doing this it we weren't too bothered about it but did it anyway. We then did some white water rafting. This was very tame, even for Shelley who has never done it before, but was made fun by trying to race the other rafts. After this we did some bamboo rafting. This was pretty cool and relaxing. We passed a place where lots of elephants lived and were bathing and drinking in the river, it was a shame we didn't have our cameras with us. After this we had dinner and then headed back to Chiang Mai, where once again it was sad to say goodbye to people who had met.
This trip started off in a traditionally unorganised thai approach, but turned out to be really good fun.

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