back from the jungle

I'm back.

I don't even know where to start...

The last three days have been amazing. I never expected so much from this little tour that I booked.

Two days ago we set off on a journey into the hills north of Chiang Mai. We started our trip at a waterfall and then hiked 2 hours into the jungle. The walk was pretty intense and started to worry some of the people in the tour. It was essentially really bad single track. Very much off-camber, dry and uneven. It reminded me of some of the mountain biking I've done... but worse. We arrived into the town at dusk.

The town (I don't remember the name off the top of my head) has a population of about 270 people. We walked around a bit but it got dark quickly and with very very limited electricity we couldn't do much more than feel our way back to our camp. We spent the evening with some local people who talked to us (as much as they could) and played games with them.

Day 2 started with an early morning after what must've been the worst sleep I've had all trip long. I was terribly uncomfortable (my sleeping bag was much too small, my pillow was hard, I was on the floor, and I was cold)... And surprisingly, this town was VERY noisy at night. Farm animals roam around freely and make noise all night long. I completely forgot that I had my earplugs... We got woken up at 7am by our leader and left on our trek up to the next village at 8:30am. We walked for 4 hours straight. It was very hilly terrain but amazing. Our first stop was an elephant camp. We played with the elephants and fed them for about an hour and then jumped on and they brought us through the hills to our next village. The elephant ride was insane. I was totally freaked out going down hills, white knuckling anything I could grab onto at first. I tried to remember what the guide had told us "trust the elephant - it knows exactly where to step and won't fall down the hill" and that really helped... But still... it was pretty freaky but again totally amazing.

By far the highest point of our jungle journey for myself was arriving into the small town yesterday, jumping into the river, watching the boys play with the village children in the water and then going out to meet the children and give them little gifts we had brought them (I brought them these funky pencils that I used to love when I was a kid.) The kids were really happy and followed us around the town all evening. The guys got to play soccer with the men from the town in a 16 against 16 game of soccer (it was hard to follow and there was only one goal the entire game).

We played some games yesterday night again and drank some of the town's moonshine (rice whiskey which wasn't bad but got us all really really drunk). We got really rowdy too - the poor little town mustn't like us very much after last night. I also tried my first cicada... It wasn't bad actually.

Today was a little more low-key. We took a bamboo raft down the river most of the way back to Chiang Mai (4 hours of sitting / standing in water). I'm glad to be back at the hotel in dry clothes. Driving back into the city made me realize just how polluted it is here - there was a definite change in air quality as we drove in. The hill tribes definitely have cleaner air than in the cities here.

I think it's pretty obvious that I had an amazing time.

The walking gave me a lot of time to think. Watching the way these people live has really left an impression on me. I can't put into words most of what I've experienced in the last three days and my describing the events really doesn't do any of the trek justice.


Now... one thing I want to talk about is the people I've been doing this tour with. Most of them are really great and we get along pretty well. There is this one guy though that just rubs me the wrong way. I mean to the point where I was hoping he'd fall out of the back of the truck today. He was one of the first people I met from the tour and even the first night we went out drinking together I knew he'd be a problem - I had to tell him to stop touching me three times the first night I met him because he would do these things that were just really irritating (like poke my ribs or something along those lines). Last night I almost whacked him really hard when he touched my leg (as part of a game we were playing) in this really annoying way (I again had to tell him to not do that.) I've noticed he does this with all the girls and I think a few of them are equally irritated. Luckily the group is large enough that it's easy to get away from him but still... sometimes you just end up having to sit next to him and good lord it's painful.

Anyway, I need to shower (i know, I know I should've showered before writing but my roommate's in the shower right now).

Tomorrow I visit Chiang Mai some more and then back to Bangkok! I still don't know what I'm doing next week... eek! I need to decide that soon!