Treking in the jungle

---

Thailand

On our way to Bangkok we were both recalling the last time we went there about 10 years ago. We remembered a chaotic city with traffic, pollution, poverty and so many smells (most of them unpleasant). As we landed we braced ourselves for this city only to find ourselves pleasantly surprised. We checked into our room near the Kao San Road and found ourselves surrounded by trendy bars, restaurants shops and market stalls. It was not at all how we remembered it. We weren’t sure whether Bangkok had really changed so much in the last 10 years or whether it was the fact that we arrived having spent a month in India. I think it was probably a combination of the two!

We had already done most of the tourist attractions before so we chilled out (we are getting very good at this now!) and spent our time planning the next part of our trip and enjoying the Thai food (it was a welcome change from curry every night). We did manage to see the yellow decorations that were all over the city celebrating the King’s 80th birthday. We also visited a former residence of the King’s which is apparently the largest golden teak building in the world.

We needed to organize Vietnamese visas so while these were being sorted out Andy and I headed north to Chiang Mai. Here we went on a 3 day trek in the jungle.

Our trek was led by ‘Bond’ as in ‘shaken not stirred’ - a self named title as his actual name was too difficult to pronounce. He was definitely an all action hero being a Muay Thai boxing champion, expert chef, guitarist and singer. He was also originally from a hill tribe and so was able to skillfully navigate us through the jungle.

Our trek included elephant riding (if you want an unusual yet effective hangover cure try sitting on an elephant’s neck while his trunk flexes back and blows smelly hot air and spit into your face until it is fed a series of bananas) Luckily for us a guy called Trent sat just in front of us on the elephant and he felt the full force of the elephant spit whilst we did our best to pass forward bananas and sugar cane to keep up with the elephants enormous appetite.

The trek took us through deep undergrowth and we encountered snakes, tiger frogs and firebirds as we made our way to a series of waterfalls to cool off or shower.

Both nights of the trek we stayed in a hill tribe village, eating round a camp fire, singing songs as Bond played guitar (not that easy as he tended to make up his own words with “no chicken no cry” replacing “no woman no cry” as a particular favourite.)

Other highlights included an impromptu football match between the English and the hil tribe kids. With the English holding out for a well deserved 1-1 draw. It would have been a win if Mark hadn’t put through his own net deep into stoppage time! Bond also gave the boys a Muay Thai boxing lesson encouraging them to kick, punch and elbow a sandbag that led to bruised hands shins and feet. He then showed us all how it is meant to be done and explained that he would usually train for his fight s with a banana tree!

On our return Bond took us to a real Muay Thai boxing match as one of his students was fighting. It was a bit strange seeing children as young as 12yrs old fighting as a warm up before the men started, but after a few Chiang beers we were cheering everyone on.

The trek was lots of fun, we had a really good group of 9 people and Bond and his sidekick Jungle John kept us amused the whole time.

Sorry no photos on this one yet as it takes ages on these rubbish computers. Will add them in at a later date.

---