3 Day Jungle Trip

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It was 9am on Sunday morning and we left for our 3 day trek into the jungle. We didnt have a notion what we had signedup for, but decided we would try anyways for a laugh.

We had a truck waiting for us outside our guesthouse, where we met the first of our fellow trekkers, Emma & Saskia from Rotterdam, Holland. A matter of about 10mins later we picked up the 5th member of our ever expanding group, Lisa from Canada. Then our last pickup was Aaran, Ray & Sarah from London. The 8 of us headed off into the unknown.

The journey to the jungle took about 1hr 45mins from Chiang Mai, it mostly involved Paul, Aran and myself thinking of scary, posionous, killer animals we could meet over the next three days - that put everyone to ease as you can imagine 😉

The first day started with a crazy elephant trek through the jungle, our elephant decided it worked for the forestry department as it tried to pull down every tree enroute, which meant u was holding on for ur life, so we kept throwing him bananas to keep him on the road. The elephant ride lasted about 30mins through some stunning scenery.

We then started the "trek". Now the part that i mentioned before " We didnt have a notion what we had signedup for" soon became apparent when the trek was all uphill through very dense jungle aslong a small path. We had two local guides, one lead the way and other to help the slower walkers. Now we all like to think we are fit and able to do anything, but this first day trek was over 5hours long an all uphill only stopping every hour for a 10mins rest.

We eventually reached the top of the mountain and arrived at a local village where we was to sleep for the night. We realized how high (1200ft) we had walked when we saw the clouds all around us - u could literally reach out to touch them it was a breath taking moment.We all slept in a bamboo hut on the floor with a mat and mosquito net. We had some local thai chicken & rice with local beer for dinner, then settled down for the night chatting, drinking, playing cards an singing some dodgy songs. But all in all a great start to our trip.

Next morning we met up with Enda & Michelle from Mayo who was joining our merry gang for the next two days. We started our trek downhill following the river which made for some excellent adventures and balancing on logs after a huge amount of rain the night before. We stopped off at a couple of waterfalls and had a swim to cool us down.It was just soo cool to be in the middle of a jungle, lying down under a waterfall, miles away from anything. We trekked for about 6hours and then stayed in a tiny clearing next to the river that night and had lots more card games, drinking games and fun allround

Last morning and we took a short trek downhill to the main river and then for our white water rafting. Yes thats WHITE WATER RAFTING - Now must people know that Im a better
drowner than swimmer so it was gonna be personal challenge. We started off slowly though quiet waters, the nerves building every moment. Then our guide told us to paddle like crazy, then we saw out first rapids, they throw u all over the boat so your holding onto ropes around the boat like its ur lifeline. We hit another 3-4 rapids before a 5ft drop of water appeared ahead, we was told to get in like a crash position (not what u wanna hear) in our boat, then we hit the drop which had me in mid air for a couple seconds, but I mananged to hold on an stay in the boat - we was able to look around an see the other boat behind - one of the dutch girls fell out of the boat but was luckily caught by her guide an dragged backin. We then glided down calm waters for about 10mins an all of us looked like we saw the grim reaper but at the same time what an amazing experience. We then got transferred over to a bamboo raft for about 30mins an drifted down river to our camp. What a rush 😊

We was then drove back to Chaing Mai to our guesthouses and all decided to meet up that night for some celebrations drinks - without a shadow of a doubt it was the most toughest, tiring, funniest, craziest but best 3 days Ive ever had 😉

I will upload pics once we find a decent Internet Cafe - they all have like dialup speed so would take hours to upload all the pics

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Comments

[Peg]

crazy nephew
cannot believe you did that it sounds mad but exciting waiting to see some photos.

[Rob]

Alrigh' Monkeyhead
Glad to hear your having a good time, sounds amazing so far, - so White water rafting is it?- you wouldn't even look into the canals in Amsterdam, must ha been terrifying for ya! Everything is ticking along here, the comms refurbishment nearly killed everyone but after much labour, pondering and beard scratching we finally managed to spark a big fire in the main comms room- was worth it in the end!- your name came up more the once during the whole process, your expertise and cunning skill was severly missed (we sent Adrien for the breakfast rolls in the end!)..naw seriously, we all did between 30 and 40 hours over the weekend. Well take care now and don't take any guff from those elephants, can wait to see the pics! ...dial-up...meh!

[Donna]

We beat Westmeath!
Hey there, only getting a chance to look at your blog now!! It's great to read all the stories.......but after the slagging you gave me for long travel stories.......I didn't expect so much news from you! Am very jealous, the treking brings back memories! I loved it there! We beat Westmeath 1-13 to 8 points, if I'm right, I couldn't go to the game! We've got Monaghan in the next round, think it's the weekend of the 28th July! Will keep you posted. Weather is still crap here, so you're missing nothing! Great to see the pics too. Not loving the pink shorts!!! Love D xx

[Adrien]

Haha
That story was awsome...as you can see I am a bit far behind in your blog, but now that I meant to be looking for work I decided to read your blog :)