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Published: August 28th 2007
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Me and Chai
Our trek leader - I loved his top! This has taken me longer than planned to get back too. I think the pictures were good enough to cover for my laziness though! You can't beat a Thai hill tribesman wearing an Everton shirt for coolness.
The trekking part of our trip was hard work but really fun. The first day we got a tuk tuk to the waterfall and put on our swimming costumes (or 'bathers' as Lydia would say - she's Aussie and I think it sounds better than our word anyway) and dodgy sarongs. This is so as not to show too much flesh and offend anybody. The waterfall was amazing to swim under. It wasn't too hot on this day, so it was freezing in the water. The sarong kept getting blown around and all the rocks were really slippy. I managed to swim under the waterfall but the strength of it caused me to be moved about and lose my flip flops which luckily washed up a bit further along. A girl from Japan called Shoku (sorry if that's spelt wrong) who just joined the group on this day actually slipped on a rock on the way out and cut her head. She needed
Thai Boxing
Dark and busy - not great for photo taking. 4 stitches in the end, and must have been in so much pain. She amazingly still managed (I say 'managed' - did better than most of us!) the whole trek.
We did some walking on this first day - and the start was steep uphill. We knew it was a hill tribe trek and to expect this, but just not so soon! The leech that would leave Emma's shoe made me so paranoid that I tucked my trousers into my socks, which is not reccommended for long walks in this climate! I was paranoid about leeches all day, and Martin rescued me from two on one of my shoes - I was very greatful for this as I really can't stand the idea of them anywhere near me.
We stayed in a really nice village on the first night that had a monkey! At first I wasn't happy about this, because I think it's really cruel to tie monkey's up but apparently it was orphaned and couldn't fend for itself and was zoo-bound soon. It had plenty of roaming room, but I did feel sorry for it, they seem so humanlike it's wrong seeing them constrained. In the
morning when we left we took the monkey some fruit to eat, which it did, but it threw the Oreo biscuit on the floor to be quickly eaten by a dog. It then proceeded to jump on said dog's back and ride it. Completely surreal! Aaron has pictures.
We had a really nice meal cooked by out tour guide (Chai, in the Everton top) and his friends/relatives/fellow tour guides Rambo and Mr Wit. The food was really good and there was so much of it!
The next day we did the most walking out of all three days - four hours. It doesn't sound like a lot but in that heat with those backpacks and with a disticnt paranoia of leeches it was definitely long enough! It was nice walking with and talking too everyone, however, and some of the scenery was spectacular.
We then did the main reason I wanted to do this tour
- elephant riding. It was so surreal being sat on the back of something so powerful. It is not as comfortable as you'd imagine - the metal bar at the back of the seat bruised me because of all the times I got bashed into it on the bumpy journey. The seatbelt comprised of a piece of string which we could easily have fallen through on the downhills, so I was gripping onto the metal back very hard indeed! The comedy of the day was Rob's elephant - it was deranged! He was riding on his own (I was with Aaron, and everyone else had other people with them too) and his elephant trainer seemed to abandon him from the beginning. The elephant proceeded to do loads of things including throwing grass and mud on it's own head and at Rob, passing him a stick with it's trunk, constantly breaking the trail and wondering off into the bushes. Ours was the mother of the youngest elephant who followed us the whole way to feed when needed, and Rob's elephant managed to deliberately kick the baby quite a few times! It also overtook ours when the baby was feeding, and ours
would not relax until she'd claimed back her rightful lead. This didn't happen until the end when Rob's went for a proper long wonder into the bushes.
Back to work...the net's quite expensive here so I'm not even sure if I'll finish this time.
The elephant thing was so much fun that anything after that was bound to be a comedown. It's still fun to think back and laugh about it all though! We walked into the next village that we were staying at, and the rain started just as we arrived. Perfect timing both because we didn't want rain for the whole time, and just because it was so nice and cooling after such a long, hot day. The village was bigger than the first one (I'm not sure what the villages were called btw - will find out and post when I can) and even had a primary school and a proper sized football pitch. Some people went straight out and played football in the rain (I would have dont but didn't fancy it in the flip flops I had on)
and me and Rob sat under a shelter in the spectator section. I had a nice conversation with an older man who said that he was too old to play. The first question people seem to ask around here when you meet them and they discover that you're English is what football team you support. I said Everton and he started going on about Andy Johnson - I was very impressed! He also pointed and laughed everytime one of them slipped over in the mud (which was often!) and I'm not surprised to say that Aaron was the first to slip. He was fine though - think he enjoyed the impromptu mud bath.
That night we had more good food (a Thai curry with potatoes in, so good I'm going to find the recipe) and played more cards. We then played another game called 'Bing Bang Bong' which is just as immature as it sounds but so much fun! We all again got black face painted. Martin and Chai started mini campaigns against each other and were both covered by the end!
The next day we went straight from the village to bamboo rafts. They feel a lot
flimsier than you'd expect - but they are actually very strong. Our raft had Rob, me, Aaron, Martin and Charlotte on it and was being steered by Rambo and Wit. We felt safe with them. I'm glad we were on this one because at one point everyone on the other raft had to jump off because it hit a rock and nearly capsized! We were all wearing lifejackets anyway, and all ended up jumping in after that. We were just worried about our bags falling in! The journey lasted 3 hours with a short break half way though. I'm getting used to these long boat journeys now! This one was different though, and a great experience.
After the raft we got changed and had lunch and then got a songathew (sp?) back to Chiang Mai. This was another long, hot journey, but we did have comic relief when we kept getting chased by random dogs who looked like they had urgent messages (sounds random but it did!) We finally made it back and I had the nicest, most relaxing shower ever!
That night Chai took us all out to a place for a meal. The food was good
and all of the cocktails looked nice. Me and Aaron are unfortunately counting the pennies so settled for beer, but that's not really a bad thing!
Had a great night, and then had a nice relaxing day the next day.
(Dad, you can print this now if you want! I think I'm done)
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Jayne
non-member comment
Chang!!!!!
Keith is loving your photo of the tour guide in his Chang top! Shame you Evertonians have to go so far to find a kindred spirit!!! See you both soon, Jayne xxxx (ps fab photos Vicky)