Hill Tribe Trek Part 1


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Asia » Thailand » North-West Thailand » Chiang Mai
February 14th 2009
Published: February 16th 2009
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So after our night out in Chiang Mai, we had to summon the energy to get up and at 'em. It wasn't too hard really, I think it was just Dong who was concerned. *He's* the one who can't take his beer...

We got into a dodgy taxi/bus with our packs with our stuff in for the next three days. We had to stop by the police to let them know where we were going, in case anything untoward happened to us! We then popped to a little town to get crickets (I didn't fancy one) and oreos, then did lots of driving in the bus thing. Most people's stomachs were not too happy by the end, having sat sideways all the way, thank goodness I like to get drugged up on antihistamines these days.

There's a nice "before" picture on this page, we did get a bit more sweaty and dirty, don't worry. We gained an extra couple of people as you'll see, but they pretty much only joined us for this section of the tour.

My shaky legs and dodgy knees held me up a bit on the steep bits (up or down, didn't really matter), I tried not to hold people up but I may have done a bit, whoops. It didn't help that if I was going slow and steady, the rest of the group really were hares, going really fast, there was no "normal" pace in the group. I sucked it up though and got on with it.

Towards the end of the afternoon we arrived at the first hill tribe village. We were greeted by lots of grunting pigs, clucking chickens, mangy looking dogs and a few villagers. I would have liked to have spent some time having a bit more of a wander round, but we marched off to our accomodation for the night. A big wood hut, with mattresses, mosquito nets and not much else! We had some very cold showers, good food and went to bed quite early.

When we rented our sleeping bags the day before, the guy in the shop had insisted that it was going to get quite cold. I really didn't believe it would get that cold, afterall I slept in -4 one night in Canada and was (mostly) fine. However, it was true. We got really blooming cold. Thankfully a few extra blankets were available so it wasn't too bad.

We had a yummy scrambled egg and toast breakfast the following morning before setting off at about 8:30. This was good though as it meant we avoided the worst of the heat - walking in the midday sun - not so fun...




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