Rafting, Riding and Rice fields = a great trek!

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Finally the morning of our trek is here! We all pile into the truck and leave the hotel at 9am, stopping here and there along the way to pick up and drop off people and things, and then finally, we are on our way to the park where we will start our trek. We stop at a market outside Chiang Mai where the guide buys all the food that would be needed over the course of the next two days ( and yes, he carries it allllll in his own pack!).

We start out at the bamboo rafting place, where Meg, Kyle, Mike and I pile onto one raft and set off down the dirty river. The guide tells us to sit down, but we are afraid to sit in the murky water and our raft is malfunctioning and sinking about 12 inches under the water. After almost tipping the raft, we decide to sit down and get soaked, and only later do we find out the the rest of the group on other rafts were allowed to stand up and their rafts weren't sinking and gross! Aside from that, the ride is fun, and at one point we pass this farm where the farmer is using a machine to chew up corn cobs and since he has no better place to put them, he spews them into the river! We get pelted by flying corn cob bits!!

When we finished our rafting adventure, we piled back in the truck and continued on to a small village that we were able to tour around while waiting for our guides to cook us lunch. This village was composed of mostly stilt homes made of wood and a handful of newer homes made of teak, complete with hand carved elephant heads at the entryway! We see this awesome spider near our lunch table - the spider has a hard shell that looks like an Easter egg of yellow, black and white. His web had a thick white X through the centre of the web, like a bullseye or something to attract prey. Such a unique spider! Lunch was fabulous, a simple bowl of rice and veggies, but somehow so delicious!

By this point I had made two new friends, in the form of Emma and Benjamin, the 5 and 3 year old French children who were part of our trekking group. I think Emma was so excited to meet someone besides her mom and dad who spoke French and she didn't leave my side for the next two days! Bonus for me because I got to practice my French!

As our trek takes off, we start by making our way to the mountains via an unharvested rice paddy - wow, so picturesque, like a scene from a movie! We make it to the jungle and hike up for about 3 hours (and amazingly, Emma keeps up the entire time, what a tough 5 yr old!). We have a great trek through streams, over rickety bridges, by countless waterfalls.

We arrive at our bamboo hut around 5pm and decide that it will be fun to go for a swim in the large waterfall right beside our sleeping quarters. Well, fun is maybe not the right word to use since the water is FREEZING cold, but at least we get rinsed off and refreshed!

The guides cook our dinner over an open flame fire and it's surprisingly super delicious! We have cucumber soup, a bean sprout/chicken and tomato dish, a salad of tofu and bamboo shoots and of course, rice! Afterwards, we chill by the campfire, singing songs, playing cards. Since we are in the middle of the jungle with another long day of trekking tomorrow, everyone is in bed by 9pm, so we follow suit. That night was cold. So cold. We were given blankets but not nearly enough to keep us warm so no one gets much sleep, but I have to admit, despite not doing much actual sleeping, it was totally cool to "sleep" beside a rushing waterfall - very soothing.

The next morning we wake up early, have toast and watermelon for breakfast (seriously, the guides carried a watermelon in their pack all day yesterday!??!?) then pack up and hit the trail. It takes us the better part of the morning to get back to the village that we started at, but along a different route. We trek along a ridge on the top of the mountain and it gives us amazing views of the surrounding rice paddies and farm houses. Along the way, the guide points out lots of neat plants, like leaves that bleed red if you break them, stalks that you can blow bubbles in when broken and leaves that curl up when touched.

We have lunch again at the village (soup and rice noodles) then board the truck and head to the elephant camp. Mike and I get to ride the papa elephant (named Song Jan), the only one with tusks! We ride in the seat on the elephant's back, while the guide rides on top of the elephant's head. We get a 30 minute ride through the jungle, across a river and back to the starting point where we get to feed our elephants bananas for a job well done. Halfway through our ride, our guide decides to let Mike change spots with him, so Mike gets to ride on the elephants head and drive him! Eek! He later lets me join Mike atop the elephant's head! What a cool feeling - he has such huge neck muscles and with every step, we are shifted from one side to the other. The elephant's skin is covered in sparse, coarse, short hair and as we are going along, Song Jan decides he wants to see what a human hand feels like and he curls his truck around Mike's hand!

After the ride, we get to hang around for a while, watching the cutest of cute baby elephants (2 months and 8 months). They are so small and follow their mother around just like in Dumbo! All in all the elephant rides were an unforgettable experience and we are so glad we did it, but it's not something we would do again. The elephants are kept in chains when they are not being ridden, which was sad to see and the guides liked to torment the young elephants by chasing them around the camp. We certainly had mixed emotions when we left the elephant camp.

Despite our skepticism at the beginning of the trek, we had a wonderful time, a lot of new experiences and saw some really cool things!! Back in Chaing Mai, we changed pace and had pizza for dinner, spent the evening wandering around the Night Bazaar then have a wonderfully deep sleep at our hotel.

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