Well, what an experience!
We went on our 3 day 2 night trek up into the mountains near Chiang Mai.
Fist Day:We caught the ute from our hotel to 'nice place hostel' where we were all herded into the back of this ute with seats along the tray.
There was 13 of us so it was REALLY squishy.
We met some Ozzies Rose and Ray who were from Melbourne and really awesome people. It was great having people to talk to.
We then drove to 'base camp' where they fed us before our big hike. It was the best fried rice we have eaten in Thailand.
Then we saddled up and headed on off. We only had our small backpacks so it was a big easier.
We hiked for about 1/2hr that seemed like 2 hours to this little resting spot. Jamie wasn't tired at all but I was stuffed. Never realized how unfit I was. We then kept hiking and the further we went the steeper it got and it got STEEP! Candice had to stop at one point due to overheating and on came a bleeding nose. The guide (Wee) was really good about it and stayed with us while Candice's nose stopped.
We then got half way and the pace was slowing down from everyone.
After about 2 hours of hiking up hill on came the thunder and lighting, so it was time to move. There was a really steep part where everyone had been up before us and made it really slippery. Candice was struggling trying to get up it and fell down sliding a fair way back down. I thought she wasn't going to get back up and huff time came. However she got up and pushed on.
We finally got to the camp 1050m above sea level, so we went a fair way.
We were staying in these bamboo huts with thin mattresses on a floor the moved every time someone walked. The showers were just hoses on the wall and it was only cold water. We were definitely roughing it!
The view from the hut was AMAZING, you could see the other villages and the cloud cover on the other mountains.
Candice got a migraine from not drinking enough water after I had told her numerous times to and went to bed early. I stayed up with everyone and got to know our guide better (Wee) who was really funny. He spoke really good English and knew enough about the foreigners and the Thai's to have jokes with us.
Second Day:We got up and had a look around the village. We saw where the others in the camp lived and where the children played. The kids only had rubber bands and a old toy to play with. We felt really sorry for them but that's all they know. No Barbie and Ken or Tonka Trucks up there.
We then packed up and hiked back down the mountain stopping off at a few waterfalls along the way. We stopped at one and had a swim. After a long walk the water was really nice, but really cold from the high altitude. We all got our photo taken on the log, so it was a nice group shot.
We kept on trekking down the hill stealing lychees off all the trees on the way down, there were HUNDREDS. The fruit over here is ten times better then home, it is so much sweeter. We finally arrived at the Elephant Camp where we stayed the night, with the same arrangements as the night before. However this time we had to shower with water from a bucket, very interesting.
We stayed up talking to everyone and the guides and it was a really nice night.
Third Day:We got up and packed all our gear up. The Elephants arrived and there was SO much excitement in the air. We were all assigned two per elephant. They were so amazing. We named ours 'Stampie' off the Simpson’s. They took us for a ride around to the other village where we could buy banana's to feed them. Stampie's trunk came up and we fed him a banana, so cute!
They made the elephants we went up and down hills just to demonstrate how steep they can walk up and down. It was a bit scary at times. Stampie would go really close to the edge and Candice would get scared that he was going to go down.
After the elephants we went white water rafting and Bamboo rafting.
We both enjoyed the white water rafting and really want to do more of it. One of the guys that was in the boat with us, another ozzie was wanting to be more extreme and ended up falling out through a really big white wash (not sure of the terminology).
After the bamboo raft ride we went back for lunch were we caught this ute and we stopped half way to steel more Lychees. A guy selling ice cream from his scooter had a catchy tune and followed us to our lunch area trying to find some customers. HE WAS HILLARIOUS; you really had to be there. If we could post video on here we would show you his little dance.
We then all got back to Chiang Mai were we organized to all meet up for dinner and dinks to celebrate our great hiking expedition. We went to this reggae bar called Roof Top Bar, it was awesome.
