And so I have arrived in Asia... First Stop, Chiang Mai

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I have arrived! And due to a sore throat that I'd caught from a dorm full of coughing Norwegians in Oz that had manifested into a throat infection that made me vomit every 30 seconds, I had spent my first two days in bed. The poor pharmacist didn't know what to do with me when I turned up telling her that I'm allergic to almost all antibiotics but she somehow managed to find one that she didn't think I was allergic to and thankfully, I wasn't!

So after those two days in bed, I was feeling pretty healthy and rested and decided to go on an easy-going one day trek. Which didn't actually include too much trekking but that was fine with me, didn't want to push it after being ill.

The first stop on the day tour was an orchid farm filled with all colours, shapes and sizes of beautiful orchids. And my SLR decides that it's not sure that it wants to work anymore. Please don't do this now SLR, I'm almost at the end of my trip and you've been amazing! I managed to take a few photos before it turned itself off for the day but I'm not sure it's going to last much longer.

We were then taken to a little village where the long-neck Karen Tribe live and sell small souvenirs. They wear rings around their necks to stretch them so that they can look more like swans. I was able to feel how heaving the rings were and I don't think I could wear one let alone one for every year of my life and a few more once I'm married!

The thing that really struck me about the village was the church on top of the hill - it's a Christian Tribe!

To the elephants we then went. The two Chilean girls on the trip, Tania and Natalia, wanted to sit on the neck of the elephant and me being the only person not in a pair meant that I sat with them but on a seat and on the largest elephant, 25 year old male Phu-Phay. Who I'm pretty sure just wasn't in the mood for us today.

Tania had already given him all the bananas she had before we were even sat down so as soon as we did take our seats, he threw his trunk back for a snack and was not happy when there was nothing there. So he started to tap the shoulders of people sitting on other elephants for his banana fix and they obliged, at first.

When the bananas had wandered too far ahead, Phu-Phay went on strike and just decided to stand still, sideways, and not do much at all (except go to the toilet). He eventually did move and into the river he went where he was happy for a few minutes spraying all the other elephants (and my legs) with water.

The poor girl on the elephant in front of me had Phu-Phay tapping her up for bananas from the left and another elephant doing the same from the right in addition to her elephant reaching back for some food too! Don't they feed these animals?

We then trekked out of the river and up a hill with a cliff overlooking where a stream used to be with an almost, but not quite sheer drop into the emptiness. It was a pretty long way down and Phu-Phay turned, faced the edge and started to walk towards it. What the hell is doing? He began to lean over the edge causing the Mahout to shout loudly making the elephant come to a halt.

He backed up, trekked some and turned again. Heading straight for edge, he leaned forward and tried to grab a tasty leaf from a branch hanging over the cliff. It must have been a good leaf because he then went to reach for higher, further leaves. My heart sank. I'm going to die on an elephant I thought.

Or not. He decided it was too much effort and stomped back to the end with no dramas.

Well that was exciting and I'm alive so what next?

Jungle trek time! It was only about an hour to the waterfall and not the most difficult trek but it was beautiful with huge rocks popping out of the water, trees and plants everywhere and I was able to try many balancing acts walking across fallen trees that were strewn across the the streams. And the smells! It smelt like all types of (clean) laundry! Every few minutes, the smells changed, it was amazing!

Soon, it began to rain (what would one of my blogs be without rain?) but it was quite hot so I didn't mind too much.

We reached the waterfall and of the 11 of us, only four of us went in for a dip. I figured that I was already wet from the rain and I don't have the opportunity to swim in waterfalls too often, so I may as well.

The trek back was surprising more difficult than the trek there. I almost fell over on the flat ground after stepping carefully down the rocky hills!

After trekking, it was time to go white water rafting. I'm not sure if I'd forgotten this aspect of the tour or if I just didn't know.

Our group consisted of four Germans, four French, the two Chileans and myself. It made sense that all the native speakers of German go in one raft and French in another. The poor Chilean girls were stuck with me again!

It seemed to be quite extreme rafting and we kept getting stuck between the rocks. At one point, our guide out of the raft, into the water and genuinely struggled to get back on. When he finally did, he was holding his heart and look fairly shocked! Poor guy.

The rafting came to an end and we arrived at an extremely shallow point in the water. Out of the raft on onto another raft we go. Only this one is made of bamboo which the lead guide aptly named as the 'bamboo submarine' and with seven of us on it, it pretty much dragged along the river bed all the way back to land. Well, sort of land... to a whole bunch of bamboo rafts tied together which we had to step across. Thankfully, one of the French guys was lovely and after helping his girlfriend across, came back and helped me too!

So my first real day in Asia went pretty well and I managed to pack a lot in and enjoyed it despite nearly being killed by a hungry elephant!

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