Wanderlust in South East Asia

Even someone who usually shudders at the thought of exercise, like myself, couldn't help but be absolutely overwhelmed by the end result of this day long trek in the surrounding rainforest of Chiang Mai, Thailand.

A view even a postcard couldn't depict, the unbelievably green rolling hills of the Thai countryside stretch as far as the world can see from the balcony of our camp. Our accommodation is a simple wooden hut nestled on a secluded mountain side, and was reached after an intense day of walking in a humid heat, but here, with my friends, a camp fire, thousands of miles from home in front of a vast mountain rainforest view that could never be truly captured by anything but your own eye, I wouldn't have taken it back for the world.

That’s not to say our hike up here didn't have its benefits. We ate a lunch of fried rice after swimming in a turquoise lagoon and jumped over 20ft from the cliff edge of a waterfall into a crystal pool below. It’s the stuff of glossy travel brochures, but here it’s for real – lazing in blue natural pools, catching your breath before the view of a jungle filled ravine, and now, I’m sipping a drink, listening to music and talking to new found friends in the middle of the South East Asian jungle. It’s perfect in so many ways, and the view is only made all the more precious by the fact that we navigated the rocky terrain here by foot, step by step. I wonder how many sets of eyes have seen this view.

Our basic hut accommodation is rented to us by a Thai family who live just meters away from where we are sitting, choosing the forest as their home away from the overwhelming bustle of cities such as Chiang Mai and Bangkok. Cultures apart – theirs rural and without electricity, ours urban and bursting with technological distraction – we eat dinner with our hosts. We prepared it together, both having a limited understanding of each other’s languages, but the result - a rich and spicy homemade Thai curry with rice – transcends language boundaries. It’s delicious in any language.

As the night begins to fall and the sky changes, from blue, to pink, to purple, to black, we burrow ourselves into our sleeping bags under our mosquito nights, surrounded by the squarking and chirping of rainforest life. Here is a place of peace and seclusion from the world is a luxury rather than a hindrance.