Chiang Mai - The Trek

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So I made it back on time to the travel agency to get my lift to the airport to Chiang Mai and though I was supposed to get a normal taxi to the airport the owner of the agency offered to give me a lift in her brand new car. The car ride there she told me about this couple from Quebec that was only in Thailand for 2 days when they went into the street market and weren't watching their stuff and had everything stolen (passports, wallets, clothes, everything!) and the owner of the agency actually lent them money to stay at a neighboring hotel and contacted the Canadian embassy to start all the arrangements...she said that the girlfriend was so angry at her boyfriend for not watching their stuff that he was almost in tears!

After the owner dropped me off at the airport I checked in for my flight and saw another Star Alliance VIP lounge...man, I have to tell you this Elite status is the best thing you can have when you travel to foreign countries. The service, food and facilities are 5 stars. It was nice to just chill for the hour before landing in Chiang Mai to start trekking.

The 3 days of trekking was unbelievable. The first day was by far the toughest on all us in the group from walking through brush fires, (which the tribes start to control the vegetation from getting too high and causing some very serious fires) to crossing rivers with make shift fallen tree bridges to a very step up high climb to stay at our first hill tribe village after a 3 hour trek. But it was well worth the view and amazing home cooked food by Tarzan (yup that's his real name) who was one of our tour guides and came from a neighboring tribe. The stars up there at night were unbelievable, it was almost like you could reach up and grab them. The second day I had my trekking legs broken in and we trekked for about 2.5 hours to reach our first waterfall through rice patty fields and small villages and then another 2 or so hours of trekking to reach our 2nd waterfall and final destination for the night. Yup, the 2nd night we actually stayed in huts that were about 50 feet from the waterfalls which we used to shower at night and in the morning. The final day was the highlight after trekking another 2-3 hours we rode elephants and then went rafting down a lazy river which including jumping off 30 feet rocks into the river below as local Thai's watched.

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Photos

Trek
Tom enjoying the view

The Trek
Guess how you flush it

The Trek
We walked through these brush fires