We made it back to Chiang Mai yesterday around 4pm after our over night trek into the wilderness. We departed from Gap's House, the local guesthouse we spent our first night in Chiang Mai, around 8:30AM after a good omlette breakfast and checked in at the Eagle House who was our tour group. We locked up all our extra baggage and jumped onto a truck that had installed benches in the back so it could ride about 8 people. There was a total of 6 people in our group including our guide, Lek (means short, which he was!). Our fellow trek'mate was named Julie and she is from Belgium. She's wrapping up a year of working in Australia with a month long trip in Thailand - how nice. We were in the car for a bout 30min before our first stop at a small town where Lek picked up supplies for our trip - mostly food for our dinner. We also were able to get some good pictures of bins of rice and chilies as well as whole dried squids, frogs on a s
tick and baby crabs in a wood barrel - yum. Some of the smells were overwhelming but was facinating how different we all live. We then jumped back into the truck for another 30-40 mins and went to a great waterfall and entered into the Doi Suthep National Forest. The waterfall we saw was probably 20 stories tall and very impressive. From there it was time for lunch and we stopped at a roadside stand for the most authentic and fresh lunch. We had fried rice, pork stir fry and fresh watermelon - it was really good. It was back in the truck for another 40min (all on winding roads climing into the mountains) until we reached our final trailhead location, which was at a hot spring. We all dipped out toes into the hot spring river before we started hiking. Our driver jumped right in and was thigh deep, while most of us were only able to dip our feet at brief intervals. We hit the trail and walked for a good 2-3hours before we hit our first tribe village. It was interesting because the hike was all either straight up hill or straight downhill, no inbetween. The two villages that we saw were both part of the Karen Tribe, out guide spoke the language as his mother and wife are still part of the Karen Tribe (in a different part of Northern
Thailand). All the buildings were like wood lodges and were up on stilts. Mark suffered from a few leech bites after our first stop so while he and Laura were doctoring up his wounds one of the tribe members pulled some dusty cobweb off of one of the buildings and stuck it on the bite - it worked. It was pretty funny though because we had all our antibacterial wipes and creams out and here is this dirty old cobweb. A little dirt never hurt. While we were at the first village a little baby monkey appeared. I guess he had fallen out of a tree and the tribe adopted him so we had a lot of fun watching him. We have lots of pictures and video of the little guy. We then headed out for our next stop, another Karen Tribe where we would stay the night. The tribes do a lot of rice farming so we saw so many picturesque rice fields built into the lush jungle hillsides.
Once we made it to our second stop we settled in and Lek made us a gourmet dinner. We played some cards and one of the tibe men loved the whiskey we had brought, lets just saw it disappear ed by morning! We then hiked for an hour to the elephant camp at another hilltribe. We all rode elephants for about an hour in and out of the river. It was amazing! They are such huge animals. We then hopped onto a bamboo raft that one of the villagers made for us and traveled down the Mae Ping River for about 2 hrs. While we were rafting there was a huge downpour and we all got soaked (whatever hadn't been soaked already by the rapids), it was such a fun experience. After the rafting we hopped back into the truck and came back to Chiang Mai. We had a hard time finding a place but were
successful and got a room with aircon for $14. Pretty good. Today we had a leasurly breakfast and then went to Doi Suthep, the mountain temple, then we had a Thai lunch and excellent foot massage. Tomorrow we head out for Koh Samui. We are safe and haven't been touched by the protests happening. We'll be safe and will make sure to update the blog as things happen.
We made it back to Chiang Mai yesterday around 4pm after our over night trek into the wilderness. We departed from Gap's House, the local guesthouse we spent our first night in Chiang Mai, around 8:30AM after a good omlette breakfast and checked in at the Eagle House who was our tour group. We locked up all our extra baggage and jumped onto a truck that had installed benches in the back so it could ride about 8 people. There was a total of 6 people in our group including our guide, Lek (means short, which he was!). Our fellow trek'mate was named Julie and she is from Belgium. She's wrapping up a year of working in Australia with a month long trip in Thailand - how nice. We were in the car for a bout 30min before our first stop at a small town where Lek picked up supplies for our trip - mostly food for our dinner. We also were able to get some good pictures of bins of rice and chilies as well as whole dried squids, frogs on a s
tick and baby crabs in a wood barrel - yum. Some of the smells were overwhelming but was facinating how different we all live. We then jumped back into the truck for another 30-40 mins and went to a great waterfall and entered into the Doi Suthep National Forest. The waterfall we saw was probably 20 stories tall and very impressive. From there it was time for lunch and we stopped at a roadside stand for the most authentic and fresh lunch. We had fried rice, pork stir fry and fresh watermelon - it was really good. It was back in the truck for another 40min (all on winding roads climing into the mountains) until we reached our final trailhead location, which was at a hot spring. We all dipped out toes into the hot spring river before we started hiking. Our driver jumped right in and was thigh deep, while most of us were only able to dip our feet at brief intervals. We hit the trail and walked for a good 2-3hours before we hit our first tribe village. It was interesting because the hike was all either straight up hill or straight downhill, no inbetween. The two villages that we saw were both part of the Karen Tribe, out guide spoke the language as his mother and wife are still part of the Karen Tribe (in a different part of Northern 
Thailand). All the buildings were like wood lodges and were up on stilts. Mark suffered from a few leech bites after our first stop so while he and Laura were doctoring up his wounds one of the tribe members pulled some dusty cobweb off of one of the buildings and stuck it on the bite - it worked. It was pretty funny though because we had all our antibacterial wipes and creams out and here is this dirty old cobweb. A little dirt never hurt. While we were at the first village a little baby monkey appeared. I guess he had fallen out of a tree and the tribe adopted him so we had a lot of fun watching him. We have lots of pictures and video of the little guy. We then headed out for our next stop, another Karen Tribe where we would stay the night. The tribes do a lot of rice farming so we saw so many picturesque rice fields built into the lush jungle hillsides. 
Once we made it to our second stop we settled in and Lek made us a gourmet dinner. We played some cards and one of the tibe men loved the whiskey we had brought, lets just saw it disappear ed by morning! We then hiked for an hour to the elephant camp at another hilltribe. We all rode elephants for about an hour in and out of the river. It was amazing! They are such huge animals. We then hopped onto a bamboo raft that one of the villagers made for us and traveled down the Mae Ping River for about 2 hrs. While we were rafting there was a huge downpour and we all got soaked (whatever hadn't been soaked already by the rapids), it was such a fun experience. After the rafting we hopped back into the truck and came back to Chiang Mai. We had a hard time finding a place but were 
successful and got a room with aircon for $14. Pretty good. Today we had a leasurly breakfast and then went to Doi Suthep, the mountain temple, then we had a Thai lunch and excellent foot massage. Tomorrow we head out for Koh Samui. We are safe and haven't been touched by the protests happening. We'll be safe and will make sure to update the blog as things happen.
2 comments:
WOW!!! what an amazing adventure already. Can't wait to see your pictures. Keep the posts coming and stay safe!! xo Michelle :)
What an adventure you're having! Can't wait to see pics! Love you, Jen, Bren and Mikey
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