Trekking out of Chiang Mai

We recently spent 3 days and 2 nights trekking in the north of Thailand. The hostel we were staying at organises treks which they guarantee are not "zoo" trips...

Day 1
8.30am departure with a 4 hour minivan ride (minivan = back of ute) before stopping for lunch. After lunch our guide Nu took us on a hike north in one of the national parks for about 4 hours until we arrived at a small village in the hills. The village had a population of about 160 and was made up of Thai and Burmese people. A lot of the villagers were illegal immigrants so if they get raided they scarper back over the border to what they call safety.

When we arrived at the village the kids got pretty excited and started calling out "candy, candy!, Falangs, candy!"... so luckily we had taken note of the advice and stocked up on lollies.

FYI - Falang = white person



After a massive dinner we looked up and noticed that we were surrounded by grinning women and kids that had suddenly emerged from the darkness. The kids got their candy and the women wanted to sell us their handy work. We both got roped into buying head bands - it's impossible to say no when you are literally surrounded by breast feeding villagers and kids/dogs knocking into you under the table.

After being mauled by the locals we hit the hay in a raised shed complete with mosquito nets.

Day 2
Woken early by the roosters and the pigs we devoured breakfast before crossing a river and hiking for about 4 hours.


(the river was chest height)

Lunch was made for us and served in bamboo plates with chop sticks that were made whilst we waited. We were allowed to play with the knife and apply our own skills to the bamboo as well.



After lunch we went bamboo rafting - the raft was about 10 meters long and as the name suggests it consisted of lashed together bamboo. The people at the front and back do the steering.



The rafting was pretty cool - nice views and no walking. We found a passion fruit floating in the river and divided it up amongst the crew - very tasty.

After probably 4 hours we arrived at the next village.

This one was even smaller than the last with about 60 people. After dinner we were once again swamped by the locals who set up a little market just for us - aren't we lucky? Each time the make shift market kicked off our guide, Nu, was nowhere to be seen... convenient timing I guess.

Day 3
This time we were woken by roosters, an ox (who had a bell around his neck) and a pig who was under our hut. After breakfast we were put on the back of a truck and driven to a cave. The cave was pretty big and took us about an hour to get through - lots of stalactites but no stalacmites - we deduced that the cave is prone to flooding. There were lots of spiders and bats. We did our best to wake a sleeping bat with the aide of several rocks. End conclusion was that it was a very deep sleeper impervious to physical pain, or quite possibly dead.

Emerging from the cave we were back on the truck and off again - this time arriving at a small elephant park. We jumped on an old male elephant that went by the name of Gaeo. Gaeo was very hungry and spent a lot of the walk eating vegetation that we passed and drinking from puddles before squirting mud onto his back and therefore onto us.

The little elephant leader man jumped off so we took turns riding on his neck - a precarious position to find one's self in - it's surprisingly hard to balance, and you never really know how close your feet are to his mouth. At the end of the walk Gaeo knelt down and we scampered off.



Once again it was back onto the truck but this time back to the luxuries of Chiang Mai (like a shower and western toilet).

Highlights
- Our tour guide Nu. Burmese by decent he had a quick whit and lots of banter
- Staying in the "remote" villages but noticing solar panels and satellite dishes as-well-as locals on cell phones
- Elephant riding. Classic animal exploitation and very cheesey - but it's still a huge animal and fun to ride on
- Ong; he was a guide for the first two days. He spoke little to no English and was basically a packhorse. He carried a bag that weighed about 10 kgs - an old flax weaven one with one strap. His preferred carrying method was with the strap across his forehead and bag on his back - not bad for a man in his 50's (surprisingly small traps).

Lessons Learned
- Take candy to remote Thai villages
- There is no such thing as under prepared - we were advised to take good foot wear but the guide was rocking around in jandals
- Leeches are easy to burn off but the wound bleeds for a while (thanks to the aussie who went through this)
- Don't get on the wrong side of the man with the machette - you should have seen the look on the guys face each time he swung his knife. Simply ferocious.