Thai Trekking

9:10am:  We ordered pancakes and hoped that they would arrive before the truck that was to pick us up between 9:00 – 9:30am for our trek.

9:20am:  We received our pancakes.

9:20:01am:  We started eating... quickly!

9:30am:   The truck arrived to pick us up for our trek. 

9:30:01am:  We breathed easy…..

After a hectic morning getting ready, our two-day trek in Northern Thailand was refreshing and relaxing.  1-hour of riding on benches in the back of a pick-up truck with 7 other travellers, 1 market stop for food, and 1 stop at the smallest village in existence brought us to the start of our hike.  We hiked for a mere 15 minutes before stopping at a picturesque waterfall for lunch.  The baggie of veggie fried rice would give us the energy needed for a more active afternoon. 


We hiked mostly uphill for a couple of hours that afternoon at what I’ll call a “leisurely” pace.  It turns out that not everyone is as used to walking through forests as we are.  We were so happy to be in the fresh air, surrounded by trees, with mountains in the distance.  This is not something we got do in Egypt.  The forest was a little reminiscent of Gatineau Park, with less pine trees, bigger leaves on the ground, and more bamboo.  We finished at a Karen Village, a quaint hilltribe village in which we would spend the night at a “7-Star Hotel” according to our guide Kik.  I’ll guess the scale is out of 20. 

Our evening in the Karen Village was quite nice.  Tom and I walked around the village to see the houses, animals, and rice fields before dark.  We even saw the three little pigs.  We bought a couple of souvenirs from the local craftswomen.  It was actually overwhelming and a little heartbreaking to have five women desperately trying to sell you the same things, and to have to choose between.  Still, we were glad to be able to support the local community. 





We ate delicious thai food for dinner (no pigs!) around a long picnic table, then the local children started up a campfire for us.  Many women and children from the village came to join the campfire, and the children performed many songs and dances for us.  It was about the cutest thing I’d ever seen.  We learned the “Elephant Song” and sang and danced with the children, before being asked to perform a children’s song from our countries of origin.  As the only Canadians in the crowd, Tom and I were on our own.  In a frantic minute of discussion, we passed on “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider” and “Pat-a-Cake”, and settled on “Skinna-Marinki-Dinky-Dink”.  I hope that I sang the song better than I wrote its name here.  We sang the song to the children, along with the movements, with many of the local children dancing along with us.  Once the Canadians, French, Koreans, and Austrians had all sang to the children, they sang us one last song goodbye, then shook our hands before leaving for bedtime.


Despite a sleep much disturbed by a dog who seemed to think he was a rooster, along with roosters responding to the dog, we got up the following morning excited for another day of trekking.  After a non-thai breakfast of toast and eggs, we hiked mostly downhill for about an hour to another waterfall.  Knowing now just how hot the day would get, I decided to go for a swim.  Tom was too busy taking photos to get in the water.Or maybe he was just too smart to get into the icy cold water…







We continued with another couple hours of hiking, until we reached our truck, well not our initial truck, but a truck for us nonetheless.  This one did not have benches, so the nine of us just stood in the box for the short ride.  In Tom’s words:  “safety first!”  The truck took us to the Elephant Park where we would ride elephants. 
Tom and I got to ride a mother elephant, which was neat since her baby followed us around.  We bought bananas and sugarcane to feed them, which they certainly seemed to appreciate.  Mom was especially hungry, eating two bananas at a time and moving her trunk right back up to us for more food as soon as the last bite made it to her mouth.  Baby was a little clumsy, having a harder time getting hold of the banana, then taking its time chewing it.  I guess elephant’s aren’t so different from people.

We soon ate lunch and headed out for our last activity:  bamboo rafting.  We may have to bear children, but at least women get the most relaxing spot on the bamboo raft.  Our guide made Tom help paddle while the French woman and I sat on the raft sunbathing.  It may have been sexist, but I wasn’t going to complain about the hour of floating down a stream on a beautiful day in Thailand.  When the rafting was over, we got back into our original truck, whose benches now seemed a luxury, and headed back to Chiang Mai.  Next stop:  Hanoi, Vietnam, with a layover in Bangkok.