We were pretty dazed after arriving in Bangkok without a place to stay (thank you unreliable internet hostel bookings) and waiting for the sun to come up so we could book a room. That being said we were pretty out of it when we signed up for a 3 day jungle trek in a national park just north of Chiangmai in northern Thailand and werem't really sure what we had signed up for.
What we got was an amazing 3 day hiking/whitewater rafting/camping/elephant riding trip. On the first day we were loaded (what must have been a completely illegal amount of people to pack into a truck) into the back of a truck and driven a couple hours to the start of a hiking trail in the middle of tobacco and banana fields. On the way we stopped at a paper making center that used elephant poop for the paper, awesome experience, didn't smell at all! The hiking that day was pretty lowkey and we ended the day with an hour elephant ride that was so humbling. Our guide for the trek, a local college student named Cai (pronounced Chai), was so much fun. A highlight for the night was watching him and one of the men that lived at the elephant camp smoke an E-cigarette for the first time. One of our travelers with us showed them his and let them smoke it. They all had huge handrolled cigarettes from the tobacco fields that surrounded the camp and it was pretty funny watching them figure out the E-cigarette.
The next day we met up with about 10 or 15 other travelers and hiked through the jungle to a couple SWEET waterfalls. The first one was a natural slide that was super fun. We ended our hike for the day on top of a mountain where a tribe lived. This experience was incredible!! We all stayed in a long communal bunk house that overlooked a valley and had a firepit on the porch out front. Watching the sunset over the northern Thailand mountains was epic; the stay at the village was a huge highlight for me, as was being sung to by the local school of about 10 elementary aged kids. Everyone in our group was so fun and so nice. We had travelers from Holland, Korea, France, Great Britain and AMerica. We've learned that Americans make up a minority for travelers here. Since we've been here we haven't even met 5 Americans. Pretty rad!
The last day we hiked down (way down) the mountains to another huge waterfall and then to a whitewater rafting company. The rafting was hands down my favorite part of the trip! Just class I and II's (no Numbers!) but the water was perfect and clear. About the temperature of the MEsa in the summer. We even got to sit on a traditional bamboo raft and ride it down for half a mile or so. I did stand up at the end of our float and find a spider about the size of my palm on my leg.....
The trip was humbling, gorgeous, enlightening, eye opening, pretty dope! A little more tone and a little more tan. So happy we made that decision in Bangkok.
Robin
