ChrisJenTravel.com – Honeymoon Trek

We woke up early – one side of our body had inevitably gone numb sleeping unsoundly on our twin sized plywood mattresses, especially since the previous nights sleep was sitting upright on a bus.  The taxi driver arrived and picked us up for our first trek.  We were hoping to meet some others on the tour and soon realized that wouldn’t happen.  There were 2 deaf women and 2 Thai women in our group.  Although we were happy to meet them, the conversation didn’t go too far.

First, we headed to an elephant village in the rural mountains; different from the zoo-style park we had visited the day before. The smiling beasts were waiting aside platforms for us to mount like buses in a terminal. They were beautiful and it was cool to be even closer than at the park. We picked ours and sat atop as it meandered down the rocky mountain trails and up and down some very steep passes. The tiny local driver sat right on his head with his legs behind his ears.  At certain times it felt as if the little wooden box we were riding in would fall off the top and a few times we had to hold on with both hands to keep from falling off the elephant. We also stopped at some elephant rest stops, where they “encourage” you to buy snacks for your big friend. We thought the poorly written sign that said, “Snacks 20 baht for to make friend with your elephant” were pretty coy and cute, so we couldn’t resist buying some bananas and sugar cane. The only problem is,once your elephant knows you have food, he stops every few minutes swinging his trunk up and back insistent for another snack. That, and the one behind you gets a bit greedy and sneaks up to try to steel your stash with his trunk. Overall, we found them lovable and gentle despite their jaw-dropping power and size.  Of course, we made all the usual comparisons to our beast back home, Morgan.

Next we drove to a small village where we met some of the local hill-tribe people and watched them weave fabric. Yes, we actually drove our tour van up a dirt road and parked next to the village, which diminished some of the authenticity for Jenny and I, but the simple bamboo stilt houses were interesting and the villagers were welcoming.  A few agreed to have their picture taken so Jenny got some good shots.  We resisted the encouragement to buy their textiles, as some of them were a little too close to what we’d seen on the streets in Bangkok. The next portion of the tour was a bit disappointing. We were led to a forgettable waterfall where we took a prearranged swim break, but no one was interested in the murky water so it turned into a pit stop for the store that had been put up 20 feet away.  One thing we’ve noticed is that the term “waterfall” is used rather loosely and we have yet to find one that compares to our favorite in Costa Rica for size and natural beauty.  From there we hiked another 20 minutes to a second village, however, this one was nothing more than a set up of stalls selling more souvenirs and drinks.  We watched with great amusement as tourists perused the goods inevitably taking home a bag of mementos that were made by a factory nowhere near where we were. The day did end much better when after lunch; we took bamboo rafts down a nearby river.  Each raft held 4 people and was only about 4 feet wide by 25 feet long. Loosely tied together, it was kind of like standing on a giant surfboard.  With the help of our guide we steered it through some gentle rapids using long bamboo sticks, getting partially doused with the cold water and only dropping one passenger along the way, luckily it wasn’t either of us.
 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 16th, 2007 at 12:11 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.