After the first 30 minutes of climbing up a 57 degree incline, you truly do think you are going to die. I kept thinking to myself there was no way that I can do 2.5 more hours of this, it has to level off soon. Sure enough, the land did level a bit and we took a five minute breather. I cought my breath and played a bit of slingshot with the young thai boy who was ahelping lead the trek and some Irish guys that were in the group. Then, we heard we were told it was "Time for more excercise" by Moonshine Whisky, our guide. So off we went, and I was disheartened to see that we were headed up another incline, steeper than the first.
Despite the rediculously difficult, and also scary, trekking, I had the best time of my life for my 3-day trek outside of Chang Mai in Northwestern Thailand. After being seperated from my group initially (they overbooked the tour, I finally met up with them at the elephant camp. After a quick lunch, we head up onto the amazing anaimals and were off through the jungle. It was about an hour ride and the scenery was absolutely unbelievable. My elephant was a bit of a fat boy and kept begging for more of the little bananas we bought at the beginning of the ride.
When we got off the elephants, we were told that the "excercise would begin". The first little bit was easy and included flying across a river in a little cage attached to a wire. But once we got to the other side, the hard part begin. We trekked about 3 hours, 97% of that was uphill, and finally reached the Lahu village we would be staying in. We had a great meal and Moonshine entertained us with Bob Dylan, the Eagles and other great American favorites, along with some popular Thai songs (I have no idea if they were actually popular, but the rest of the villagers were singing along.)
That evenign was spent drinking beers by the fire and getting to know our fellow trekkers through an interesting game of never have I ever. After way too many beers we all headed in to bed.
The next day we had breakfast and another 2 hour hike to a waterfall. The first part was uphill, but it was the second hour of downhill that was the hardest. My knees were killing me, and the incline was about -50. It had rained a few days later, so it was extremely slippery and people were falling left and ride, coast down a couple feet on their bums.
The waterfall was great and we got out and took a swim, had lunch and relaxed on the rocks. Then, we trekked another hour to a larger waterfall and then headed to our "Jungle Camp". The night was spent how it usually was, playing with our slingshots, singing songs, drinking beers, and telling stories. It was amazing to be surrounded by the rivers and trees and vines. I looked up and saw a million stars, listened to the crickets finsihed up the last of my beer and headed off to bed.
The next morning, we had an easy but scary 1.5 hour trek. The land was flat, but we had to cross rivers and creak on nothing but a thin long. Walk on a path just a bit wider than your two feet that had a tremendous drop-off on one side. But in the end it was fun and exciting, and with the help of our walking sticks, we all made it out alive. We had a great 1 hour white water rafting trip followed - jumping out of the boat for a dip during the more tame sections of the river - then we cruised down the rest of the river on a bamboo raft.
When it was all over, and I was back at my guesthouse, I couldn't stop thinking what an amazing few days that had been.
