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Published: November 9th 2008
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Phew! What an adventure the past three days have thrown our way. We've traversed King Cobra infested paddy fields at night, slept with snakes, forged across torrential rivers thigh deep in monsoon mud and had our blood almost sucked dry by leeches. We reckon we're lucky to be alive .... and even luckier to have a good story to tell afterwards.
The hill tribes of Northern Thailand's trekking areas beckoned our adventurous souls and we headed directly from Bangkok to Chiang Mai via overnight train. Having conducted less than a skerrick of research , we had no idea what a Thai jungle trek entailed. To be honest, we were a little cocky, considering ourselves far too experienced in phenomenal world renowned and challenging treks (such as Peru's Machu Picchu, Hawaii's Kalalau Trail and Tassie's Cradle Mountain), to be at all inspired by a lame stroll through some Thai hills. Our hiking companions stroked our egos further as they squeezed their inexperienced feet into stinky plastic hired walking shoes & crammed their belongings into ragged borrowed backpacks. At least we showed up to a trek with the right gear.
Perhaps the pre-hike registering of our passport details with the Tourist
Police should've clued us in on the gravity of the situation and the potential dangers awaiting our innocent selves up near the Burmese border. Instead we fretted momentarily over a Dengue Fever warning and got back to judging the stupidity of a rather vocal and vain Egyptian-Canadian chick we nicknamed Cleopatra (every group has one!).
Our guide "D" (short for an unpronounceable Thai name), was a character of many faces. He stopped every twenty steps along our first day of walking to point out interesting facts about every single fruit, flower and plant we passed. After a mere forty minute downhill stroll he warned us of the hugely arduous mountainside facing our calves before delivering us to our local night-stay village. Literally eight minutes later we hit the top, having barely broken a sweat. It was at this point we decided we'd wasted our time trekking in Chiang Mai's jungle region. This was child's play. As darkness hit we showered with a bucket of cold water, helped 'D' cook up a mean Thai curry and sat around a crackling smokey campfire watching local children dance and sing. Just like school camp, we were then forced to join in. 'D',
a rather talented guitar player, then reeled off hours of clichéd sing-a-long classics while ordering everyone to drink more beer.
As the fire diminished to a glow and the villagers retired to their beds, the most spectacular night sky sprouted a gazillion stars normally invisible amidst the shine of city lights . It was the most impressive sight we'd witnessed in a long time, with shooting stars zipping across so bright you'd swear the were just about to smack you right between the eyes. The world is so amazing.
Settling down for the night in primitive bamboo huts, we wiggled and squirmed through a fitful sleep laced with exotic jungle bugs and snorting wild boars. Perhaps we should have taken up the guide's offer to "come and see the doctor .... Dr. Feelgood". Four of them lay peacefully in a candlelit opium haze, unfazed by the living jungle closing in. (God only knows how they managed to recover by the morning's hike).
Day 2 decided to punish us for our overly-confident attitudes. Now the exhilaration of real adventure began. We trekked through searing heat for three hours towards a hidden waterfall, slipping and sliding down muddy slopes
all the way. 'D' broke the bad news to us after a bone-chilling rinse in nature's own shower: we'd been robbed! Some local villagers had stolen our noodles, chicken, eggs and bananas. We were reduced to basic rations, (there'll be no rice cravings round these parts for a while yet), and our banana pancake dream for the following breakfast was downgraded to mere pan-fried dough.
To make matters worse, the heavens opened up and dumped an unseasonal monsoon on our heads right after the rice-fest. We mounted elephants for an hour-long ride, drenched to the skin and shivering like mad. Around this time everything began to unravel. A naughty baby elephant was intent on playing. He slowed us down, ducking and diving into every stream and puddle we crossed and generally acting like an insolent toddler. It would've been cute had we not been on the verge of pneumonia. Mama and Aunty elephant refuse to budge until the little bugger was back on his feet beside them. All three elephants ignored the shouts and slingshot threats doled out by their trainers, as we sat atop powerless and belching frustration. By the time we'd reached the widest crossable stream, the
monsoon had morphed it into a raging torrent pickled with tree trunks and debris. It was far too dangerous for the hefty elephants to tackle. We paced and waited for the rain to die and the waters to calm, trapped between continually rising rivers on either side.
Squeals of terror shattered raindrops when a snake slithered by and a palm-sized spider traversed the baby elephant's rump. Another miserable wet hour passed and a rainbow broke through the clouds: our saviour .... almost. We transferred elephants, scrambling across their leathery heads to the heaviest Papa beast. He was now game enough to trudge across the raging river and drop us one-by-one on the opposite bank.
Our breaths of relief, however, lasted a mere millisecond. Night was closing in fast and 'D' was visibly scared. We still had a forty minute trek to complete before reaching camp. Apparently, there are five types of snakes in North Thailand. Two are venomous and the most deadly, the King Cobra, emerges at nightfall to hunt rats in the long grassy rice paddies. Apart from the four leech-infested rivers we were due to cross, thigh deep, one rather extensive rice paddy separated us from
our village haven. Sh*t! We ran .... as fast as our little legs would carry us, through the jungle. By the time we'd traversed a dangerous waterfall and hit the rice paddies the sky was pitch black. We kept running by the eerie light of the moon until we made it, poison-free, to the homely light of our opium-den-sleeping-hut in the distance. Peeling off our saturated muddy clothing, three screams simultaneously cried, "aaaah, leeeeech!". Dave was one of them. The bastard was suckerising his ankle and deserved the flaming singe doled out in the leech-removal process.
Our group bonded that night out of sheer terror. Leeches kept appearing on mattresses, possibly crawling from dripping clothes decorating the hut. A green snake dropped from the ceiling and slid down a hole in the floor. ('D' assured us that one was harmless). The guides went up in opium smoke and we all crashed, exhausted, awoken by the startling crow of a rooster at dawn. Strapping on soggy shoes and damp clothing, we trekked for two hours in the sun, bamboo-rafted down a calm river, ate some more rice then returned to civilisation with a newfound respect for hilltribe trekking in Northern
Thailand.
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Rosanne
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OMG!!!!!!
OMG!!! Are you both ok? I can't belive it and take my hat off to you both. There is no way I would have survived that... I thought the treks in Indonesia were bad - This tops anything I have ever heard. I'm still in Shock after reading your hike... Someone is definately watching over you two. Rosanne