Todd and Lisa's RTW trip

…. so we could change it!!!! we have extended our time in thailand so that we can go into Laos.

Our trek was awesome, but it didn’t start out that way.

The tour company told us that they would come get us at 8:30, which they did, but for some reason they told everyone else 9:30. Once everyone was together, we realized that they had put the 2 day trekkers and the 3 day trekkers together. Doesn’t sound like such a big deal…. except… there is a big difference between the type of people who enjoy hiking and the type of people who want to take an elephant ride and say they saw (not swam) in a waterfall in thailand! Needless to say, our first day of trekking was filled with comments like “they told me i would have to walk for 4 hours but they didn’t say uphill,” “they said there would be a car that we could take breaks in” (she was not kidding) and “we looked into the 3 day trek but it didn”t look like you did anymore.. except only hiking.” It was a a mix between irritating and humorous. Like mango is to sticky rice, we were to the other 3 day’ers, without even knowing. There were 2 others and we automatically connected.

Our first day we drove a few hours north of chiang mai to the don ch??? national park. We hiked for about 3 hours through the jungle. It looked very much like hawaii. It was pretty good hiking but way too many poeple in the group. We kept thinking to ourselves, this is exactly what we didn’t want!! We arrived at about 6 to a Lahu hilltribe village. That was cool way up in the mountains, a little village. We spent the night around the campfire eating curry. It was really great and even better when the guides told us that the next day the groups would split back up and we would get to be just the 4 of us. Once we found that out we chilled out a little, got some thai whiskey and learned a little bit more about the people who go trekking with white pants on (for real!!).

On day 2 we woke up hung around the village with the children and then headed off, just the 5 of us. We immediately hit it off with both Gina, accupuncturist from CA, and Ivo, guy from Holland with a contageous laugh. Our guide was not joking when he told us that the beggining of the hike was straight uphill, but we made it to the top and we had an amazing panaramic view if the third highest peak in thailand. Up there the mountains were more pine forest than jungle…very beautiful. We cruised around on top for a while and then headed down the otherside of the mountain into the mae taeng area. It was really good hiking. The trail was pretty narrow and not well worn. We felt very rugged!! Just when we were all starting to get tired, we got down into the valley. It had tall purple flowers and yellow butterflies all around. Within a few minutes we arrived at our village for the night. It was specatacular. They had a risky built bamboo bungalow for us. It took us quite a while to trust that the floor would not cave in beacause it was not really a floor, just some pieces of woven bamboo. They view overlooked the small hilltribe and the huge mountains….. Perfect.

Our guide’s wife lived in the village, so in the morning he was in no rush to leave. That suited us all fine. We hung around absorbing the peacefulness of this little village until it was time to head down the mountain. All the toughness from the day before was making us feel not so tough anymore. We rummaged our way through bamboo forests until we got down to an elephant and white water rafting camp. Simply put, the elephant riding SUCKED. But, the white water rafting was a hoot. The 4 of us got to know each other so well, it made it even more fun. We were all hysterical as we wiped out down the rapids. When the water calmed, our guide switched us to a bamboo raft. Now, we are not sure if he was joking with us or not, but the raft barely floated. Again, we were dying of laughter as we flaoted 8 inched underwater down the river. If anyone shifted their butt weight the raft would go over (and you know we were flipping all over). It was a great end to the trip. We said it a thousand times, the first day with all the people was worth the next 2 days being just 4 people. Overall the trek was awesome!!

We arrived back in chiang mai in the evening and decided we would leave the following day to go further out into the mountains (up near china and burma). We were exhausted in the morning so of course we decided to take a later bus…. oops there is no later bus. We figured we would just go half way and spend the night. We caught the bus to Pai. When we arrived in pai (5ish) we could not find a place to stay. We were just kinda roaming the streets when a lady on a moterbike came up and offered us a place to stay. We’re not exactly sure how it happened, but we ended up staying in a tent at a thai BBQ party for the King’s birthday. It was one of those times we just look at each other and say “go with the flow”. We got up and out and are now in a town called Maehongson, after a bus ride that made us think we were back in india!!

These are some of the Wats (temples) in Chiang Mai

This monk blessed us for good luck. We kneeled in front of him and he shook water on us, chanted something and then tied a string around our wrists. We sat for a while and watched the thai people before we got the courage to go up to him.

Here is the sunday market. It is really tiny compared to the real night bazaar.

These are some pics from the trek.

Tags: , Travel

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