Advertisement
Published: January 13th 2008
On the second day of our trek, we woke up at sunrise. Wit and Bee made us eggs and toast. Then we hiked for about 3hours to another village. We rested for a bit and had lunch. Afterwards, they made a bamboo raft for us to sail down the river to an elephant camp. The raft was about 10 feet long with a post for us to hang all of our belongings so that they wouldn't get wet. We sailed down the river for about an hour or so, and docked at the elephant camp. The elephants were to take us to the next village where we would spend the night. They walked through the river for most of the journey, then up the mountain to drop us off. When we arrived at the next village, our guides warned us that this Lisu tribe was very nice, but to take care of our belongings. They would offer us massages, but this was only to have access to our bags so that they could distract us. They were harmless, but they wouldn't hesitate to steal our cameras and money if given the chance. We didn't interact with them that much. Instead, Bee and Wit made us pumpkin curry, stringbean stir fry, and yellow curry with tofu and potatoes. After dinner, we sat around the fire and had barbequed eggs and fried bananas...neither or which were something I would normally eat, but they were made right there on the fire with love. The hut we stayed in was a little better than the last since it was up off the ground and the toilet was a little closer. Only problem was that there were so many cats, dogs, roosters, pigs, and elephants that we didn't get much in the way of sleep. I finally fell asleep, but woke up needing to go to the toilet. One of the guys was already outside and didn't see me leave. So, when he came back, he hooked the latch to the hut. It was 3am , and I was locked out of the hut! I hated to wake everyone, but I did not want to stay out there for 3 hours. So, I started pounding on the door, and luckily only woke up 2 people.
The next morning, we had the same breakfast and jumped in the river for baths and brushing our teeth. We had a good laugh when Tina was brushing her teeth because an elephant walked by and pooed. The pattie floated right by her as she rinsed her toothbrush. We all fell over laughing. We took the bamboo raft down the river for about 2 hours. At one point, Wit let me steer. It was definitely harder than it look. We had three 8 foot bamboo poles to propel and steer us forward. Wit handed me the pole and pointed for me to drive up front. I did pretty well until I didn't see the rock sticking up out of the water. It caught the back of the raft, and we were stuck. Wit and Bee jumped off and freed us, but the poor raft had suffered some damage in the back. As we headed down the river, Bee patched it up with some bamboo leaves. Luckily, we weren't far from the whitewater rafting starting point.
White water rafting was insanely fun, but I won't lie and say I wasn't scared at times. They gaves us the commands and had us practice putting the commands to use. We were to go 2 hours on the whitewater rafts, and the first half hour would be calm. Our leader used this time to let us practice turning and shifting our weight from one side to the other. As we approached the rapids, my heart was racing. I just didn't want to be capsized. Our group was split up on two rafts with mine being first. We cleared the first wave, but I was screaming the whole time. We stopped to watch the others, and what happened next was frightening. As they rounded the turn into the first rapid, the hit a rock and flipped. We saw everyone pop up except Tina. She had gotten trapped under the overturned raft. The got her out, but lost her paddle in the river. She was shaking for the rest of the next hour. And, their leader's legs were covered in blood because he had slammed against some rocks. All and all the experience was fun. But, I found out later that we had done the hardest section of the river. Glad I didn't know that going into it. Afterwards, our truck was waiting for us to drive us back to Chiang Mai. We were exhausted and sad to say goodbye. Tina and Mark were continueing on that night to Bangkok, I left the next day, and Guan Guan was making his visa run. We hopped off the truck and hugged, exchanging email address. We are all friends for life.
Now, I am in Cambodia, and it is scorching hot! I spent the morning, checking out some of the lesser known temples here in Siem Reap. I just had lunch at this place called Tonlesap. I ate some interesting food. If it didn't have meat, I tried it. Some things were great, others were questionable. I think I will stay here for 2 more days, then head to Bangkok. The heat is a bit much for me....
Advertisement
Tot: 0.035s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 8; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0184s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
Stacy
non-member comment
Wow, Lisa...some super fun travels..and scary. I'm glad that you had experienced guides with you. How cool is it that they whipped up a raft for you to sail on and thatched it up with some bamboo leaves? If I were ever on "Survivor" I'd want them there with me. :-) Come home all in one piece please! :-)