Trekking up North of Thailand

What a great couple days! Since Saturday morning, upto Monday late afternoon, I've been trekking around the North of Chang Mai, near to the Pai region and national park. Now to tell you what happened would take hours, the experiences and sights I saw were amazing though and below I'll try to summarize it.

Saturday 29th November

We got picked up from our hostels around 9am where we then proceeded to a waterfall 1hr North of Chang Mai, in the national park, the waterfall was amazing and incredibly cold!
After the waterfall we had a trip to the market and then a journey further up the hill to start our trekking, it was gorgeous up there, now about 2/3hrs away from civilization there was only the odd village and a fantastic lack of tourists in them. A meal later we started the trekking, it lasted about 2/3hrs but was amazing, all you would see it hills and trees everywhere, no roads and no buildings. We trekked to a village in the hill where we were going to stay that night.

The village where we stayed was amazingly remote, and by this time the group were really getting to know one another, it was a fantastic group of people, there was 8 of us in total. Two people from Denmark, 3 from Germany and then 3 from England (including myself).
It was freezing during the night, but well worth it because the stars we got to see were out of this world (that pun/bad joke is for you Ross!). That night I saw the Milky Way like I've never seen it before as well as 3 shooting stars in 5minutes, something I doubt I'll ever see again in my life. I didn't count, but a educated guess would be that I probably saw into the tens of thousands region, for the amount of stars.

Sunday 30th November
Today we woke up early, although I think really none of us slept due to the coldness and lack of insulation and fact that our beds were as solid as concrete.
After a quick breakfast, and way to much bread being offered to us, we proceeded to trekk through the forest for 4hrs to the elephant camp. Once again i was blown away by the scenery and how remote it was, we were walking straight in the forest now, paths were mud (about 50cm wide and overgrown), bridges were bamboo shoots and the sun was high up above the green growth.
Once we got to the elephant village/camp it was awe inspiring, we were at the top of a hill and just saw 3 huts with an elephant by it, when we got down it looked like a little community time had forgot. We were served some noodle soup and played their version of volleyball (bamboo football which you have to hit over a net via your knees, head or feet) this was great fun.
We then rode the elephants for 30mins to an hour up to our next checkpoint. My elephant was naturally the best, she was an elegant queen an strode with sure but steady feet through the streams and wood. Once we got to the checkpoint we walked to a nearby village where we played football with the locals, had a swim in the river and then us Brits convinced our European buddy's to drink the night away with Whiskey and coke, naturally it worked! We spent the night round the fire all telling tales, opinions and correcting the world.




Monday 1st December
We had a later morning today, waking up at around 8am and once again we got served an incredible amount of toast and then walked down (a couple of pounds heavier) to the river where our Bamboo rafts had just been made.
There was two of them waiting for us and the one which I was on naturally was less buoyant then the other, so after some quick modifications due to the fact that it sank once we all got on, we left.
The Bamboo Rafts were a fantastic laugh, we were doing it for 4hrs in total (including a brief 10min drink break in a village alongside the river) and I'd thoroughly recommend it to anyone. As I said earlier though our rft was not the most buoyant at some points it was up to my groin when we were in rapids, not the most reassuring thing! Yet all the time whilst this happened to us the other group were having no adventures what so ever, as far as sinking went!
Laughing and jokes put aside though we did have a relatively serious moment when we went though the same scenario as H.M.S Titanic!
It was all fine and we were cruising at a safe speed of 4kts when we hit a massive rock as we entered the rapids, losing balance I fell from the back of the raft to the front, we then got jammed up against the rock whilst the rapids started pounding into an unmovable boat which slowly starting splitting up. At this point thinking it had all gone Pete Tong (terribly wrong) the tour guide, Ross and Myself went in the water to the back of the raft and tryed to push it against the current/rapids, we succeeded somehow but were all incredibly shook up and the whole event did result in some minor bruising to myself and Kylie.
After that the boat was somewhat more un-float able and hitting some more rocks further down meant repairs became a ongoing thing whilst going down the river. It was however....... BLOODY FANTASTIC!!!
Well enjoyed myself and it was a shame when it all finished, we had a meal afterwards and then got driven back to Chang Mai and our guest houses. I'm incredibly chuffed that I did it though because I'm sure those 3 days I had our going to be in my head for the rest of my life and I was incredibly fortunate to meet the people in the group as they were all fantastic fun and well up for a laugh! Hope you all enjoy your travells!