The last day of the Hilltribe Trek


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February 16th 2010
Published: February 20th 2010
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The last day of the hill tribe trek and what a day it turned out to be!

After our normal breakfast of toast and fruit we walked a short way to a proper waterfall which was too impressive not to brave the cold water! All the village dogs (well 5 of them) followed us to the waterfall. Once we got there all of our group (as we had joined with another trekking group by this point) had a swim in the water, managing to swim our way against the current to the waterfall. It was beautiful (those on facebook, that's chris' profile pic)

We walked back to our camp, picked up our staff and walked an hour to a village for lunch. Judy (one of the village dogs) followed us all the way 😊

Our first stop was the elephant camp. When we got there we were told that a baby elephant could be seen if we were quick as it and it's mum Lanoi were being taken to Fai's Hospital in Lampang as the baby was only 15 hours old! It was the tinniest, cutest little thing ever. Apparently it was born prematurely and as a result couldn't reach for milk. The mummy elephant kept moving around and sometimes trod on it causing the baby elephant to squeal. We then went and did our elephant ride - our elephant was at the front and kept stopping holding up all the other elephants! At one point our elephant and the one just behind attached a pile of bamboo and sugar cane with their trunks eating it as they plodded along. We reached some massive containers of water which the elephants took it upon themselves to snort up their trunks and spray all over us! Glad we had bamboo rafting second!

For the bamboo rafting we split into two groups - Chirs and I on one and the boys on the other. It was supposed to be a race and we were winny, but our driver was a bit shit. We crashed once, and that's when the others overtook us! Chris was punting at the back, we were going over some rapids and I offered to swap after we got past them however....

....we hit a rock, our driver went flying over the top of the bamboo raft and Chris slid down, his foot sliding between the two bits of bamboo and that raft on its side against a rock. Chris was shouting for help as his ankle was trapped in the raft. I couldn't move the bamboo apart enough to get his foot out. luckily a German guy got off his raft and swam over to us and came to help. Chris was freed relatively uninjured considering! He had a bruised bone and a few scratches. The rest of the rafting we just sat and "enjoyed" still getting scared everytime a rapid bit came up. Actually our driver made us get off and walk for one bit as he knew he would crash and yes he did!

We got our van back to the hostel, had a group photo and some nice showers. We went for dinner at a really nice place which was bloody expensive for Thailand but yummy! An early night was needed!


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