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Published: December 5th 2006
We survived and we're back...heres how it went....
The people- Me and Nat- two inexperienced travellers as was evident from Nats impractical side bag instead of rucksack and the sequins on my flip flops.
Anabel, Suzy, Charlotte and Catherine from Newcastle uni, Petra and Katya from Slovakia and Jose and Patricio from Spain and Argentina but living in Fuerteventura (sorry girls didnt find out if they knew john penn but im sure they did).
Day 1 We all set off on in the back of our bus, with our fingers crossed that our backpacks would still be on the top when we got to the desination. Stopped off at a local village to get supplies found a brilliant water carrier, which came very useful on the trek, and also we thought we better buy something because we'd used the shops toilet. On our way we had to have the humiliation of the tourist police laughing at our passport photos just to check that we were who we were. At that point we wondered where we would be going as we didnt think we were leaving the country!!
Got to the national park where it all took place and had
a light walk through streams to the place where we had lunch, there were lots of little piglets that we wanted to take with us but our bags were heavy enough. We had rice and a little seat down, also our first mountain toilet experience- basically a toilet in the ground, needed careful manouvering but by the end of it we had perfected the technique.lol.
The walk after lunch started off slow but soon i was the colour of a beetroot, my walking boots certaintly got worn in and are now a nice dusty colour.
On the way we saw a plant that you could blow bubbles from (thought eve would like that). we also found out that tigers were around the place where we were walking only 7 years ago as we were getting told this a cow ran out the bush and gave us a fright to say the least.lol.
We got to our village just as we were all planning on giving up as we weer so tired, but we were pleasently surprised, our accomodation was a wooden hut with blankets and sleeping bags, it got really cold on the night so we were glad of them.
Fter settling in which took all of 2 minutes we had tea that consisted of thai green curry with stir fried vegatables, really nice our guide cooked it for us.
after tea we were introduced to a Mr Turo, we later found out that this ment handsome in Thai, if you had seen him you would have laughed. Mr turo provided us with some new phrases for the trip including 'Oh My Budda' ( this was a play on all the english people saying oh my god when walking up the mountain.lol) and he also said 'Love you long time' i thought that was just a line in a black eyed pea song!. We all ended up sitting around the fire and playing Fuzzy Duck! with 6 english people (who didnt know the rules) a few Thai people, the spanish guys and the slovakian women, this was not an easy task and i dont think we completed a full circle going round but it was good fun.
After a long days walk we all retired to bed and tried to get some sleep.......
Day 2 The wooden floor was even harder to sleep on than it had first looked!
Our waterfall
Where we spent our second nightTheenglish girls set off earlier than us the second day because they only stayed for the one night, but us hard core 2 nighters set off leisurely at 10am only to be confronted by the hardest part of the trek ever, when jose asked us what we wopuld call this type of path and me and Nat replyed 'almost vertical' you can imagine what it was like, and as we climbed up it we were going to have to come down at some point too! apart from the first half an hour the rest of the trek was ok and we arrived at our destination for the night after 3hours, we had a stop off for lunch too (forgot that bit). The water fall looked gorgeous but ws absolutely freezing...at least we could get a proper wash..however i had forgotten my showergel and shampoo so me and nat had to share one soap between us, but it was better than nothing. Now that we were smelling sweetly, well better than befotre anyway we dryed off in the sun....the only touble was to get back from the waterfall you had to cross the river via a plank of wood... im sat happily having crossed the river, i hear Nat shouting Amy Amy and pointing in the river, what? i reply... the reply i get is.. my shoe!! Nats is stood in the middle of the river on a rock creased up laughing as her shoe is being swept away downstream...i tried (not very had really) to get it but was laughing to much as it bobbed along...luckily our guide was quick off the mark and it was saved further downstream after a mad dash.lol.
After stopping laughing about the shoe incident we had tea of sweet and sour chicken and curry again. We set up the fire by the river (well not me or any of the girls really) and were sat quite happily..Nat was sat with her torch following every ant to make sure it didnt come too close to her feet (i knew nat had a fear of insects but not that bad!!) and just as we were discussing her fear as she was following this ant liottle did she know but heading straight towards her head at great speed was a rather large brown grasshopper...this landed directly on her head and there was a lot of flapping of arms, it was very funny for the rest of us but poor natalie was traumatised...i thought she was going to pack her bags there and then.lol.
we sat watching the flames until they went out and headed off to our 2 man little wooden huts to spend a second night on the hard wooden floor, that was not softened by the bambi mattress we had that was the thickness of about 3 tissues.lol
Day 3 Woke up a bit achey but ready for the day ahead, had toast again this morning (5 slices, my personal best.lol). this walk was steep again but downhill this time, no one fell over but there were some scary moments and we re inacted the scebne from dirty dancing with the log across the river too many times for my liking.lol. We stopped off at another waterfall to cool our feet (my boots were very comfy by the way), at the waterfall we picked up a local dog that followed us throughout our trek (the dogs here look suspiciously like foxes...hmm). After another 3 hours walking and a pink nose we arrived at the village to have dinner before going onto the elephant ride- there were lots of elephants at the place, all looked after well because they are sacred in Thailand, we went on in twos and we were amazed at the size of them, we fed them bananas and were on them for about an hour, ours decided to head for the water trough at the end and have a small shower!!
after the elephants we headed for the river to go on the bamboo rafts... they looked all nice and calm but this was soon distrubted by Nat falling onto our backwards right on her bum, legs in the air....that was just the start. Everyone was coming off all dry and it was all quiet...we were all dry and quiet until we turned the corner and then there was a war between our groups two rafts, we got soaked and had one man overboard.lol....lots os splashing and girlie screams continued along the river..the raft infront started to disembark as they were coming up to a waterfall (it was only little) but not our raft our guid kept us on as we went down and get even more soaked through..it was the best bit of the trip though.
Then before we came home we had to get change as we were soaked so me and nat squashed into a toilet the size of well a small toilet cubicle and got changed i still dont kno how we managed it as nothing could touch the floor as it was muddy, but that was the final task of the trip and we suceeded.lol.
We had a really good time, the scenery was lovely and the people are all so nice. Ive tried to fit in as much as i could but theres still things i keep remembering, it was a fun packed three days!
We learnt never to ask how far is it to go and is it all this steep? because you never get the answer you want.lol.
Would do it all again in a second 😊
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Jim@Orange
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I'm envious
The countryside in Northern Thailand must be fantastic. Just got your email. Pls take care. Take Lots of pictures. Pity you PAYG fone didn't work. I suspect its not unlocked. get the phone unlocked when you get back to the city. probably no signal where you are anyways. I'll keep reading if you keep posting. Have fun. Jim x