in the jungle

one of my goals (and reasons for choosing thailand to come teach in the first place) has always been to ride an elephant through the jungle. there are many opportunities for this to happen all over the country, but i had a specific idea of what i wanted it to be, and for that, i knew it had to happen in chiang mai.

we were given a week off of summer school because of songkran, and decided it would be the best time to venture up north, since it was the one area we had yet to explore. we took the overnight bus from bangkok to chiang mai on friday night and arrived around 730 in the morning. at 930, we were off on a three day trek.

the trip started when we were picked up from buddy tours, the place we booked with, and climbed into a song taew that was already packed. we met our tour group and including our guide, kiki, there were 11 of us. first, our group of 5: tasha, steph, her friend nicky who was visiting from canada, me, and winer. then there were two gus from london, conor and jon, one guy from brazil (his name is italo but we always refer to him as brazil), longkorn, or lachlin, who at one point lived with the karen hill tribes and so was more of an assistant to kiki than another person on the tour, and frenchi. her name was celine, but thats not important either.

so on top of all of these people and our backpacks, we also had a large garbage can in tow. none of us really understood why at first, but soon, we discovered that it would hold our 'ammunition,' because even though songkran didnt techinically start until tuesday, the locals were all starting that day, and starting with the farangs who were heading out to trek.

though it would usually take place on the last day, our first stop was bamboo rafting. they put 2-4 people on this long raft and we navigated down the river for about an hour, all the while getting splashed by thais who were picnicking on the banks. even though the water level was pretty low, there were still times when it was deep enough to cause little rapids, and when it was time to get off, i still wanted to glide downt he river some more.

we went for lunch and then we filled the trash can with water and ice so we could head into battle (the ice is essential, read the songkran blog for a better explanation), and with longkorn hanging off the back on offense, we were prepared to head into the jungle. and by the time we were ready to start hiking, we were actually quite wet.

we did a few hours of walking and in between visited a waterfall and a temple on a mountain before we made our way to our campsite for the first night. they called it a karen village, but it really was set up in that style specifically for these trekking tours they bring through, and a different family stays there on the nights there are tourists there.

they cooked us dinner and we sat around the fire for a while having some drinks, but i retired to our shared bamboo hut earlier than most others since i was beyond exhausted. it was a simple structure made entirely out of bamboo except for the roof which was made out of dried leaves. and though i wouldnt say it was the most comfortable nights sleep ive had, it definitely wasnt the least, and i was too tired to really care.

campsite for night #1.

our second day started with breakfast at 9 and then we were off for a day full of waterfalls and walking. i think we stopped at 5 different locations, including one in which we had our 'packed lunch.'

waterfall, lunch site.

lunch packed in leaves!

we retreated to our campsite for the night just before sunset. this time it was bigger than the one the night before, and good thing because there was another group sleeping there as well. we spent a few hours joking about how much more fun our group looked because aside from 4 girls, they were all significantly older, but when it came down to it, there were only 4 of us that stayed up that night and we ended up joining them because their group was still going waaaay past when our group fell asleep.

campsite for night #2.

two funny anecdotes from this night: 1. when we woke up in the morning, we discovered the stone wall to the communal bathroom to be crumpled on the floor. 2. apparently even after i went to bed, some others stayed out and stayed quite loud. frenchi, who had already established that she was not down for a good time, was not happy about that and decided to ask them to quiet down. they did not. the next morning, when she discovered that longkorn (who was apparently the main perpetrator the night before) was still sleeping, she jumped up from the breakfast table and ran into his room, shrieking and jumping up and down. none of us had any idea what to do, we were just shocked that a grown woman was doing this, and when she came back, we tried but coudlnt hide our laughter.

so we set off again for our last waterfall, which was (kinda) deep enough to allow for cliff jumping. after having already done this, i knew it was scary, and just stayed on the lower ledge. from there, we went to lunch and then went to the final stop and the part i was most looking forward to: ELEPHANTS!

winer and i on our elephant, bua thong cha-cha!

i wouldnt say that it was exactly what i wanted it to be, because i wanted to be on the elephant myself. but it was pretty good. and i was super happy.

imagine 20 thai kids saying: eeeelefants

from there we battled the water back into chiang mai, and made plans to meet up with the rest of our group for the rest of our time in the city, since, aside from frenchi, we had all gotten so close.