Trekking Chiang Mai

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After 1 nights stay in chiang Mai, we took a 3 day trek to see some waterfalls etc and also stay in a hill trible village. Wjilst it was nice to once again break the habbit of just observing things to actually doing things this trip turned out to be a bit of a mix of good and bad. The first day we left late (as seems to be the theme in Thailand). This emant that we would later be doing uphill trekking in the heat of the day. Before we began along uphill trek, we stopped to ride elephants. This was a let down to be honest. This was mostlt because we felt guilty for supporting keeping elephants in captivity for tourists to ride. Also it was pretty uncomfortable and fairly uneventfull and just couldnt enjoy it due to the guilt.

Trekking was really hard that day- alomost all uphill and with only really one stop for a dip in the waterfall which was nice. It had been about 6 hours since we had eaten when we finally arrived in camp. This was pretty cool as we were totally in the middle of nowhere with a bamboo hut to sleep in. There was a nice fire going when we arrived and dinner was a suprisingly good thai curry- this was much needed. Ended up with charcoal all over my face for loosing the card games!! Had a pretty broken nights sleep as it was a wet night and was damp and cold but got up early in the morning and it was really peacefull. there was tea and coffee boiling over the fire and we cold sit down by the river. Day 2 of trekking was much easier than the first, although again we didnt set off untill later and the weather was really hot and then poured with rain!! This day we saw several waterfalls and had lots of time for swimming in the pools. This was essential as we had been unable to shower so far!! Lunch that day was carried from camp adn we ate from leaves with our hands which was cool.

The second nights camp was spent just outside a hill tribe village. This camp was less peacefull but had matresses on the bamboo platforms so we could at least sleep! We went to the village the next morning to find that it had was not very authentic and really just a tourist attraction as the village people tried to sell us 'hand made' souveniers etc!!!

A little more trekking and we had arrived at our final waterfall- this was the biggest but the most spoiled as it was accessible by road and there were alot of tourists there. Our final stopwas to do some bamboo rafting. This was actually really good fun and really refreshing it was literally bamboo trunks tied together but it worked well!

We were grateful for a shower when we returned to the guesthouse that evening as it had been 3 days. I felt very bad for the Thai lady who did our laundry!!!

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Comments

[Gina]

Question for Andy
Where did you ditch Laura and get that girl that goes on 3 day treks, doesn't shower the whole time, sleeps in a hut without a matress and eats cold food out of leaves with her hands?