The Jungle Trek

After a bit of confusion about where our packs were heading, we headed off for the jungle trek on the back of a ute with 2 Swedes and 2 Danes (I dunno but thats what I feel like 2 or more Danish people go by?). Stopping off at a butterfly/orchid farm and jeweller (they make jewellwey from butterfly wings and orchid petals/whole flowers buy lacquering them when they're dry) for some sightseeing/shopping - I got a butterfly wing necklace which is awesome - then to a super stinky market for water, aaaand off to the starting point of our trek, an hourish out of Chiang Mai. And boy oh boy walking for 2.5 hours in the sun and heat is pretty intense (like camping eh Lisa) I couldnt believe the sweatstation I'd become when we stopped for a bit. Heaps of fun tho, I surprisingly enojed it alot, unfit as I am. I'll add the photo of my back so you can be grossed out at me, but I think its funny. It looks worse than it actually was in the picture but you get the gist. Man I'm glad I got them walking sandals off you Julie! There were alot of big dry leaves everywhere so voila, fan. What a trend setter, soon the others had leaf-fans too, toot-toot (that be my horn). And not only a trend setter, being so nice as I am, I even took Claires backpack. While we were stopped, a man and a lady came rising past on a motorebike - this is a track where you have to walk single file most of the way - and she was holding a rifle, apparently they were off to hunt monkeys. Incredible views the whole way tho, all these random trees and plants and bushes, I have no idea what they were, and banana trees everywhere.

On our walking way we keep hearing this booming thunder over the hills, and Terry - our guide - tells us theres a storm a brewin. It won't get us till tonight tho so never mind, oh and here try this random fruit I've just found on this tree here. Thanks Terry that was pretty yum fruit. As we come out of walking through the corn fields, there's 6 elephants just chillin out in this...pen I guess youd call it. Wow. First time Claires seen an elephant, in real life, and Terry informs us we can only ride them if we get in the pool. Ah, yeah, so the pool is a rectangle dirt pit filled with brown water. But what the hey, we've walked for 2 and a half hours. I wouldn't get in the murky rank looking backpacker chlorinated pool, but I'll do a running dive into a brown stagnant oblong in the earth that elephants clean their throats in. Righto.

Yee-Haw, elephant riding time. It's 2 to a beast, and somehow me and Claire wind up being first on, and it's the biggest too. Oh lordy. We're going up this vertical muddy bank when our elephant decides to stop and take a giant poo, which is hilarious cos everyone else in the group is behind us and gets to watch. Joy for them. A few elephants semi decide to go off and do their own thing half way through, like Mashs which went off roading hahahaha. They'd stop for a munch here, move a bamboo tree there, stop for a poo here, stop and scratch their bums of boulders and take a bucket-load pee all over everywhere. Suck up dirty water with their trunks and spray it all up the side of them, including half of me. Yum. Then throw dirt in the same direction. Double mmmm. Downhill was the worst, you have to hold on like hell to stop from slipping off. Almost at the end and our elephant decides he wants some of the food from the elephant snack bar, but the guide who's sitting on his head says no. Elephant says yes. Guide say no, and jabjab with a creepy hook thing in its ear/head. Elephant says YESSSS, which causes more jabjabjabbing, which makes me terribly uneasy, and makes the elephant move surprisingly fast from side to side, while growling - who knew they growled - then making the typical loud elephant nose sound. Then he takes us to the drop off and I feel sorry for the poor bastard. It was exciting, but the jabbing, not so much.

Terry says, 'Go up there, to hut, relax till 6.30 then down for tea'. Sure thang Terry. The huts are up 40 huge steps, and are made of reeds and bamboo with a wee mattress and pillow and net to keep out bugs. The view is so amazing, I wish my camera wasnt a giant brick and in my big pack locked in storage somewhere, and my other one wasnt flat. Go a few photos but it was incredible. Nap time. After some awkward mingling where I feel my NZ drawl sounds top-notch, it's Thai Green Curry, again! Score! And we don't even have to do the dishes. After tea = beer and whatevs time, and the other local guide 'Dewey' tells some hilarious jokes in awesome broken english. Jokes such as: An old man goes to the doctor and asks for 4 pills of viagra. The doctor says yea sure here you go. The old man asks the doctor to split the 4 pills into quarters and the doctor tells him thats no good, a quarter won't do anything, you need a whole one. But the old man says no, no, it's not for sex, it's so my weener sits out from my leg when I pee so I dont piss all over my leg. Crowd goes wild, Dewey is comedy gold, Oscar please. He did say it alot funnier sounding than that reads, and with a cheesy grin on his face, and in funny Thai/English, but hey, thats all I've got for you.

Theres fireflys everywhere, gosh they look cool. Even through the Poms and them Danish boys making silly noises like Quagmire off Family guy and telling louding laughing stories, getting to sleep here is a breeze. In the middle of the night it starts to rain and I wake up due to it raining directly onto my face. Through the roof. Lucky I anticipated this, and have my umbrella handyet up above my head, and I'm instantly asleep again.

Up in the morning for toast, jam, eggs and coffee, and watching the elephants swim. The rain was too heavy and the track is too slippery to do most of the trek thats left, so we skip if and go to the waterfall via the Akha Tribe, where little old ladys make me feel like Claire, and Claire is like the BFG. They were hilarious, buy this buy that, take a photo with me, I've never brushed my teeth in my life, but they were awesome. The waterfall has a natural rock slide, which is huge. I didn't go down, neither did Claire, but Mash the brave old boy got up there and went down. The picture I have of it doesn't do it justice. This other girl decides to go down, and she had glasses on, and I'm assuming she realises they would come off if she goes plummeting down a waterfall into a who knows how deep pool at the bottom. Apparently not, as she promptly looses them. And then she sits up and her boob is out. And she doesn't know. And we all notice but no one tells her. Poor gal. So I do tell her, go me. Friggin Dewey climbs this tree over the deep pool, and attempts to do a freakin back flip into the pool, and as soon as he jumped you could tell it was all wrong. He goes crashing into the edge and slides into the water, while I'm thinking blood and brains will be emerging at any second, but he just floats up saying ouch very sore, very wrong, and has a scratch on his knee. Hard. Jesus.

White water rafting is next. I've never been before. The river is brown and extra high from the rain the night before, but after a 2 minute safety briefing - When captain say 'Go', all paddle, when captain say 'Stop' no paddle. Then a bit about where you have to put your legs, how to hold on, and off we go. Only one person in our group decides to sit it out. It's nice andd easy for a bit, rapids, easy, rapids, singing the banjo tune from deliverance, rapids, easy, then he tells us here come the big ones. Oh dear. Freeeaaa-ka-hee. Going sideways into a huge space where water should be, the boat thing gets filled with water, me and the other girl who are middle people get thrown into the middle part thats filled with water, wowza, after the initial shock of it, it really is exciting. Just dont get caught up with the others wooping and yelling with your mouth wide open as you go over a rather large one and everyone has filthy mud water down their throats, its not tasty. Then we transfer from the dingy raft to a bamboo one, and we sink so that our we are submerged to our waists in the river. Kinda gross, as there were little bug things everywhere, and we heard some other guide killed a snake by hitting it with his steering stick. Probably just a wee fib to make us tourst peeps talk it up haha. We did get a shower after, it went on for 17 seconds then off for 7, for the 10 minutes we were in there. The next people had it turn brown on them and they came out dripping with muddy stuff. Hygenic.