Advertisement
Published: October 8th 2006
Edit Blog Post
So we finally managed to pack up our backpacks and head to the airport for our 11 hour flight to Bangkok. I don’t know quite how we managed to fit in the hair straightners but we did…. (good one Wade). We arrived in our hotel about 5pm so thought we’d just go for a wonder get some food and a couple of beers followed by an early night. Funnily being us we just went straight to the bar and got smashed! Met tons of students from the UK who kept asking if we were on a gap year, of course we agreed and tried to pass ourselves off for 21 year olds. I’m not sure they would have agreed had they not been so drunk themselves.
So day two we were woken up by Bailey at 6am who had just traveled up from the south to meet up with us. We’d been looking into going up to Chiang Mai so we booked a flight and headed up there. 3 day hill tribe tour here we come. I’m thinking just a few hours walking though the village you know leisurely stroll, how wrong could you be.
We were picked up
from our nice little hotel and driven to the mountains. After lunch we walked 1200 meters straight up. We had to carry our backpacks and sleeping bags and to top it off it was raining heavily. People were sliding over every 5 mins, twisting ankles and all sorts. We did eventually get to the top and were presented with what can only be discribed as a shack on stilts. It was clean and dry so it didn’t bother us to much. Got our sleeping bags laid out on the floor with our netting over us, good grub and a few beers set us up nicely for the night. When we woke up to the cockerels in the early hours I got up to find a spider the size of my hand dead on the welcome mat to our room, no lie, it was the size of my hand. It seems that someone had got up in the night to go to the toilet, (shed with a view), and stood on it without realizing. So day 2, I’m thinking, were going down how hard can it be?? Well within 30 mins I’d fallen on my backside 3 times, covered in mud,
the mud didn’t bother me as much as the thought of what was going to attack me whilst I was down. The trail between villages was no wider than 1 foot and with a neck breaking drop one side and the other side covered in jumping spiders I didn’t fancy my chances if I slipped. We had to fashion our own brides out of rocks & bamboo to cross the rivers (rapids) and our guide kept looking slightly lost at times. 3 hours in and my legs were shaking with exhaustion and I’d given up caring what was biting & stinging me. I just wanted to survive. Then the guy in front of me spotted a snake… Half way through the trek Baileys Reefs gave up the ghost, I tried to fashion him a quick fix using a condom from our survival pack (thanks girls) but nothing was working. So he had to squeeze himself into Wades’ size 4 pink ones. Lovely… kept us in high sprits though.
Our accommodation on the second night was shocking. By the river and crawling with bugs and stuff. I decided that the only way to get through this was to drink ½
ltr of rum and pass out, which I did. I woke up at 6 am with my sleeping back upside down on top of me and crawling things all over me. It was shocking. I took Amie to the bathroom to shower up, and had to explain to her that the bucket of water with a bowl in it was our shower. I just didn’t care, just get the bug crap off me. So the final day and we can only just move our leg muscles. If they tried to make me walk I didn’t know what I was going to do. No no no this was they day of the elephant trek, it was wicked, although me and Wade got a naughty one who wanted to get in the river and eat bamboo. Then a 30 second lesson in white water rafting and off we go shooting down the brown river at high speed, just hoping we didn’t come off.
So back to Chiang Mai and flight back to Bangkok where we are today. My legs are improving but I still have to fall down onto the bed and getting down the stairs is a bugger. But I’m
ALIVE. Off to the River Kwai tomorrow so will bring you news from the death railway soon.
Kirsty Jane
Advertisement
Tot: 0.132s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 6; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0824s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
yeliaB deeR
non-member comment
Special people
You lot look like a group of 'special kids' in the lifejacket picture. The man in green is handsome though - looks a bit like George Clooney!