Welcome to the Jungle

In the jungle
Welcome to the jungle
Watch it bring you to your
knees, knees
(a little GnR for ya ... in case you didn't know it)



I rode an elephant, went bamboo rafting, trekking, swimming at waterfalls, saw a few poisonous snakes, and met some of the Karin hill tribe. Needless to say, Rang, our guide for our three-day trek did a fantastic job.



For our trek, we were only with two others and a guide, for a total of 5 people. The "others" happened to be a lovely newlywed couple from the states ~ Anna and Justin. This is part of their honeymoon. They are working their way to China where Justin will study Chinese as part of his degree. Anna just finished her undergraduate in Art History. It was nice to be in such a small group and the four of us all got along very well. We haven't met too many Americans in the other part of our travels, so it was a nice change. Justin and Anna managed to squeeze all of their stuff into one backpack which Justin carried for most of the time, there was no way Mike was carrying my stuff....



Day 1: Rang picked us up from the guesthouse and brought us to a market "in case we forgot anything" that was on the list he had given us at our pre-meeting the night before. Mike and I were prepared, so we opted for some fried noodles for breakfast at a whopping 20 baht (less than 60 US cents). Yummy. Try not to thing about the sanitary conditions.... Next up, was an elephant ride through the jungle. We all felt like we were going to fall off, when we headed downhill, but we all managed and just got a bit muddy when the elephant sprayed himself off. After the elephant ride, we had a rice-y dish for lunch in a small village. 3 weeks of eating rice everyday makes you not look forward to it at all. After lunch, we began our trek into the Jungle of Thailand. It was a good hike, but not too strenuous. We completed our hike at a spot built out for the tourists with little bamboo huts and right next to a lovely waterfall. The waterfall was our shower for the evening and really cool. It was nice after sweating continuously all afternoon to relax in the cool waterfall. Dinner was a combination of dishes (and of course, rice) and was delicious. We were camping with another group of 8 that had just completed Day 2. We got chatty with some Canadians that were headed the opposite way and gave them a few pointers about what we'd liked so far.



Day 2: Breakfast is toast! Yeah. It's not warm and there is nothing but jam and margarine to go with it. I just love it. Ah well. Today we trekked all day. We started pretty late, about 11 am, and just adventured upwards towards a small hilltribe village. Of course, it wouldn't be the jungle without a litle rain. It downpoured upon us for a good while, but the tempture also cooled considerably so we were not in a state of constant sweat. Rang is very knowledgeable about the jungle and all along the way, for three days, he pointed out various animals and plants and such to us. We saw large anthills that took years to build. He also explained to us, when we reached an abondoned field, that the US governemnt pays the Thai governement to help enforce its anti-drug policies. (We were walking through what was formerly an opium field.) The posionous snakes were a real joy to behold ~ I hate snakes. He also picked some baby mangos for us to eat (too bitter, no fleshyness). When we arrived at the place for lunch, we had some noodles with veggies ~ ala ramen noodle style. Yippie!! Of course, we ate a ton since we'd worked up an appitite. Rang took the leftovers along and gave them to the children of the village. For dinner, we had some lovely rice with green beans and some wierd dried pork. It was pretty decent overall. After dinner, the Karin people brought us some of their tribal goodies to buy. Mike & Justin bought hill tribe shirts which are quite unique, I bought two scarves, and Anna bought a skirt. The people of the village are extremely poor, so we did our share to add to their future prosperity. They also basically never leave the village. Some of them have never been into Chang Mai, where we're staying right now.



Day 3: More fantastic toast for breakfast. My favorite thing!! Off to start another trek. It was less strenuous than day 2, and we soon reached a lovely little waterfall area. We rocked our swimsuits and had fun playing around. After that, we had another short walk and reached the "jungle seven eleven" and then waited for our truck to take us into the next village. This was the wealthiest village by far, that we visited in the 3 days. We arrived at a small place and had a scrumptious lunch full of different veggies and meat. We also were encouraged to have some chili sauce with our food, as always. It was yummy! Much better than the noodles they served us yesterday. Then it was off to bamboo rafting. Bamboo rafting was the ultimate fun. My favorite part of our trek, I wish we could have done it all day. The raft is made up of very long bamboo and they fashion a bit of a seat in the middle. This is where Anna and I sat. We had a guide in the front part of the raft and then Justin and Mike stood at the back. They took turns being the man of the raft or Man of the Jungle. They had a large piece of bamboo with witch they used to push the raft downstream and away from rocks. We floated through a few small rapids and almost tipped off a few times, but overall it was a blast. Ahh jungle trekking in northern Thailand... loads of fun!!