Trekking

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hello everyone!
There's lots to tell this blog.

We took the trip from Bangkok up to Chang Mai, the cultural capital Thailand.
As with every bus trip in Thailand it took 12 hours. If a bus trip is not 12 hours,
then there are an excessive amount of rest stops until the total trip time does equal 12 hours.

The first night we booked our jungle trekking trip and went to see a Muay Thai (kickboxing).
The first fights of the evenings were just little kids, maybe 13 (or younger) and it was hard to really root for them.
A bit later in the evening, the fights really started to get good. One guy got a cramp in his leg and his opponent
just brutalized his leg until he went down. The next match was an older fighter vs. a young buck.
At first, everyone thought it would be a thrashing -
but the younger fighter threw the first blow and the older guy caught his leg and knocked him to the ground.
It was downhill from there though for the older fighter. We saw him on the way out of the stadium getting his head stitched up. Yikes.

The "prize" fight was a German vs. a somewhat flabby thai fighter (draw your own Star Wars analogy). The Westerners in the audience would have given the German fighter a better reception had he not tripped over the ropes getting into the ring. His hubris didn't do him well either - The Thai fighter just lightly sparred in the first round. Within a few seconds of the opening of the second round, the Thai fighter gave a spinning roundhouse that put the German down for the count......

Our jungle trekking trip was intense! Overall, it was 3 days and 2 nights.
There were 14 people in all, a big group of friendly Canadians, a Dutch guy, and an Israeli couple. Our guide Manet was a real piece of work. He learned English from the GI's stationed in Thailand during Vietnam and his language was - er, colorful. One of the Canadians brought a guitar along so there was plenty of Pink Floyd and Jack Johnson sing-alongs. Manet offered a lot of great insight into Thai culture and gave us a rambling history lesson one night that stretched from Genghis Khan to the current king of Thailand.

We hiked through a couple of different landscapes, open hills, farmland, rice paddies (wet and dry) and all out jungle. We stayed and interacted with 3 different hill tribes, all with their own unique languages and customs. On the second day, we took a pretty intense elephant ride through some steep muddy terrain. Patsy and one of the Canadian girls were perched on the seat and I was riding the neck. Our elephant was a little bit naughty, occasionally straying off the path for some fruit and also reaching back with its trunk and trying to grab a hold of my leg. That was honestly pretty scary because they're such huge creatures!

The final leg of the trip was a bamboo raft ride down a river with a guide. The bamboo logs were about 20 feet long and lashed together with vines. We guided our way through the rapids (not always successfully) pushing off with poles. Along the way, there were some local people working in the fields who would stop their work in the fields and stare at us. No doubt their thoughts included "It's Monday afternoon, how come I am not lounging on a raft?"

Almost our whole trekking group is getting together and going to an all-you-can-eat Thai barbeque place that our guide recommended as being off the tourist trail. From there, we are hopping on a sleeper train from Chang Mai to Krabi - a two day trip. Thank goodness for the sleeper cars! We are going to head out to some islands from there to relax before I have to head back home and Patsy heads to India. Time is flying!!!!

Talk to you soon!
-Matt and Patsy

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Photos

kickboxing
this is the stuff you only dreamed about doing with the nintendo joystick!

jungle trek
the place we trekked was sooooo lush and green!!

waterfall
we hiked to this really cool waterfall. it was very refreshing on such a hot and humid day!

village
we had lunch at this village after our waterfall venture. there were cute little (and BIG) pigs running around everywhere!! and BEAUTIFUL butterflies!!

elephant ride
you may not be able to see it here, but yes, this elephant had a thing for Matt! (feelings weren't mutual)

Comments

[anonymous]

You have some great pictures
Hello. It's been exciting reading your blog. Take care you two. Eric G.