Wow the last couple of weeks have really flown by, as time does when you`re having fun. The jungle trek in Chiang Mai was brilliant. Twelve of us travelled in a truck for a couple of hours to the start of the trek, and spent a couple of days walking through various different types of jungle, crossing rivers and streams, climbing steep hills. The first day, it rained heavily all day and we were soaked, even with rain ponchos on. We stayed at a tiny jungle village that night, eating dinner by candlelight - which was nice apart from the invasion of moths who gathered to commit mass suicide in our dinner and the candles.
Next day the weather was better, though still not too hot which was good as we did quite a lot of walking. We finished by a big waterfall which we all jumped into to cool off, then ate dinner and played cards. A fairly uneventful night, apart from the scorpion that someone found in their room!
On the third day, things stepped up a pace. We walked to a river where we jumped on bamboo rafts which hold 4-5 people, and cruised down the river through quite mild rapids. It was all quite well behaved until a mass pile-up at a rougher section of rapids caused a couple of the rafts to break up, and suddenly we all found ourselves clinging onto a tiny island in the middle of the river which was a bit scary! But we made it down safely, if very wet and a bit cold by the end. As we were getting off the rafts at the end of the course, a big wind came up out of nowhere and felled a tree about 20m in front of us which crashed down across the river - which was very scary! We all ran for the truck and made our escape back to the hotel.
By the end of the 3 days, all twelve of us were great friends and we went out that night for a big drinking session. Luckily I don`t remember too much of what happened, but I do remember sitting down on the pavement at 5am and refusing to move another step!
After that, I decided to travel to Laos with 4 english people that I had - Sarah and Ross from Nottingham, Dave from Leicester and Lucy from Hampshire. We all took a 2 day trip down the Mekong River on a slow boat to get to Luang Prabang in Laos. This involved sitting on a big boat, drinking beer, playing cards, reading books, and admiring the lovely scenery of thick jungle with the odd wooden hut sticking its roof up above the greenery. The boat was similar to the one I took on the Amazon, in that it stopped for anyone and everyone that wanted to get off or on along the way. Quite funny to see a couple of people standing at the side flagging the boat down as though it was a bus!
Luang Prabang was a surprise, I don`t think any of us expected it to be so beautiful. It was a small town with lots of temples, a couple of nice chilled bars, a big handicraft night market, and the perfect place to just chill out for a couple of days. We hired bikes and cycled across the river to check out a remote temple, and the journey took us through small villages completely untouched by tourists, it was lovely. Laos is all jungle and mountains, and despite it being fairly popular as a tourist destination, it has managed to stay peaceful and unspoilt... so far.
We then took a 5 hour minibus ride to Vang Viene which is a bit more lively and geared up for tourism, but still manages to feel authentic and relatively unspoilt, despite being full of restaurants and bars playing reruns of Friends and serving hamburgers and happy shakes. Ever since we got to Laos, everyone has talked about tubing in Vang Viene - its famous for it. So what better way to celebrate my birthday than by floating down a big river on rubber inner tubes, stopping at various bars along the way for a cocktail or two, maybe a quick game of volleyball, watching the crazy fools diving into the river from the many rope swings along the way, before jumping back into the tube and heading down to the next bar. Sometimes the river seemed busy, with big groups of people laughing and joking, grabbing onto each others tubes and going down the little rapids together. Other times, it could be relatively quiet and I had a few minutes to float in the warm water, looking up at the huge mountains looming at each side of the river and reflecting on what a great way to spend a day this was.
By 6pm we were a little bit tipsy and getting cold, so we ditched the tubes and went to an Indian restaurant for my birthday dinner, followed by more drinking at some riverside bars which had hammocks and cushions for maximum chilling.
Only a few days left now until Jayne arrives in Bangkok, which I`m really looking forward to... and then HOME! Its too freaky to talk about yet, I can`t believe how fast 7 months has gone.
