Snakes on a Trek

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I've had a really wicked couple of days. Treking was the name of the game and it started bright and early when i was picked up from 'Banana Guest House' who i'd booked my trek through. After collecting the rest of the group, 7 of us in total, we headed in our pick up truck to the local market, about 30 mins away to buy supplies for our three days. Well, we only had to buy essentials we may've forgotten, but our guide had to collect our food for the trip. Tres essential. We then had another 30 min drive to the elephant camp.
I had been slightly concerned for the welfare of the elephants which are used for trekking purposes as i had been told they were not particularly well treated. This made me nearly not book a tour with an elephant ride in it, but it was difficult to battle my eagerness for an elephant ride against my concern for the elephants. Well, I failed miserably and went with the tour and to be honest, i regret it a little bit. The elephants seemed happy enough when we rocked up, but the guy in charge of my particular elephant hit it a few times when the elephant wasn't going quick enough, and i didn't like that one bit. I also had to sit on the elephants neck as there weren't enough chairs to go around. It also seemed a little bit fake, not the trek into the wilderness that one would expect but a 45 minute walk around to get back to the start point for other tourists to get on. So yeah, I do regret it. When I have more money I would like to go to a proper elephant rehabilitation centre type place and learn how to look after them, something like that anyways.
After the elephant ride, we were taken by pickup truck to a nearby waterfall. We had lunch here and had fun playing in the water, although one girl on another trek managed to cut her foot open, we were fine though :-) The girls group joinned us whlst she went to hospital and we had a 2 hour trek uphill to where we were spending the night. On my way up the hill, Dangerous Mary (aka. a wild thai spitting cobra) pretty much slithered over my foot in its haste to escape the tourists and head down the hill. I managed to warn the girl behind me before she stood on it. At least, i think it was a cobra, I asked the guide what kind of snake i had seen, describing it as big and brown. His response was to ask me if it was quick or slow moving. To be honest, I was just concentrating on the fact that it was a big snake, not how fast it was going. But I reckon slow moving, which means poisonous apparently!
We got to the 'Karen' village and had a chilled evening playing cards and eating thai green curry, and then the children of the village came to sing to us, so that we would give them money. We had to sing also. A song from our homeland...and I sang row row row your boat...as i had a mental block of all other songs!

The following day, one of the Karen people and our guide led us through the forest on a 6 hour trek. We had a couple of village dogs with us for company. And on the way we picked up mushrooms and herbs for use in cooking dinner. Well we thought so, but we never saw the mushrooms, perhaps they weren't good enough (or were tooo good 😉 ) for us tourists! It was really nice treking through the forest, and totally what i'd signed up for, and why i had chosen this particular tour. It was a bonus having the dogs along with us though! We spent the evening in a beautiful little secluded spot. It had hammocks and a waterfall and a wood cabin, and a shower made from siphoned off water from the river along bamboo pipes. Dinner was delicious. Bamboo and chicken with rice and vegetables. Yum. In the evening we had a bonfire and had some fun playing mind games. Difficult to explain on here!

Yesterday morning we had another 2 hour trek to get to where we were to be picked up. And then we went on a bamboo raft down the river for an hour. We saw a few more snakes in the river which was a bit sketchy, but the guide kept them at bay with his long bamboo pole. phew. It was pretty fun, especially when one of the guys on my raft got caught by a tree and fell off the raft. Then we got a pickup back to Chiang Mai. In the evening I went to check out the Saturday market which was really nice. Lots of different food options and plenty of stalls selling different things. Its been a really nice few days.

Tonight we head back to Bangkok before we head down to the islands for the fullmoon party and our chillout couple of weeks. Am really looking forward to it!

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Comments

[Kate Bell]

Pheewww
Hi Bro! Not had the net for a while so just been catchin up on your blogs...I'm exhausted now. Def an epic journey. They always make me laugh, bless ya. Am please you are back on track with the fun thang. <<<<>>>> K xxx