Right (apologises for any spelling mistakes by the way ...its late and I am trying to catch up with all the blogs before I get to behind) LOL.
Once in Changmai we drove down to the midlle of no where - it to the laos looking greenery that I had only wowed at before with the realisation that I was about to trek 3 days in bug land thai jungle aaahhhhhh... On route we stopped off at a waterfall (they each look different and beautiful) so was lovely spending the morning there before a light lunch and another turbulent tuk tuk ride into the jungle.
It was about 2pm now... we were literally dropped off with our day sacks and a life jacket (to keep hold of until day 3) and we had a 3 hour trekage up and down the thai green mountains (beautiful but tiring)... our local guide NONG was also entertaining and he made some of us upfront fern and leaf hats (I felt so privalleged) as got us putting lucky leaves on termite mounds (everything is bloody "lucky" out here) and trapsing up and down mud hills and over streams... tiring as it was I and the rest of the new group had the greatest sense of achievement when completing it all - and by about 5 o clock we had reached a CURRAN village (our home for the night). The Curran are one of about 6 types of tribes that live in Northern Thailand... they understand each other through northern dialects though also each have theur own customs traditions and language too!!
It was interesting to learn some tribal brain teaser games with matchsticks and enjoy the food they had to offer (spring rolls ...curries... lots of fresh fruit; esp dragon fruit and pineapple) and look around the village. Although a tad smelly - I was expecting worse... we actually had squatter loos in corregated steel huts (better than the holes in the ground I expected) and the surrounding farmland kept pigs... cockralls (that woke us up several times in the middle of the night) water buffalo and mamy strays - cats and dogs... the water buffalos are freaky - they just stare at you and chew and snot everywhere!!Ewwww lol
But we all enjoyed the munch and Mr Tong and Nong even lit some traditional light festival lantens in the evening for us to float into the sky - which were really amazing to watch! we all had a great night sleep too!
Day 2- WOW busy now there was about 4 hours of pure trekage here... we rode elephants for an hour too... thoug hthis was slightly scarery than before as this elephant was the biggest thing I've seen and loved eating the grub that was hanging over cliffs or shaking trees full of ants - joker!! It was going up the steepest of terrain too...I was actually quite terrified and felt motion sickness at times but still enjoyed it :) with another lunch break - where they fed us up on maccaroni stir fry (weird) we were good to go with more trekage!!
In the eve we arrived at another village and again bought the local handmade bracelets etc from the tribal girls...helping support the local community and our souviner collection ;) lol and had a bath in the metang river - hill tribe stylie ;) I actually just embraced this experience despite the heights (clifftop walks - and slipping down too - ouch) and the bugs it was all well worth doing!!
WE also had another brill dinner - tried banana spring rolls - yummy lol and more northern curry food and then had a sing song...with english and thai songs (we even learn the Elephant ("chang") song and had our palms read). Its amazing that without electricity and normal running water (like a festival) you can have so much fun!!
Day 3- this was a day of bamboo rafting down the Mekang river - about 5 hours with a couple of breaks in between ... that was ace rapids on 15 bamboo pieces tied together!! We saw ded pythons in the water and local actuall free roaming elephants ...water buffalo and other village people ...it was ace :) ,,, then back to Changmai ...

In Changmai we did all the necessaries... sleeping... laundry (second laundered service whoop whoop to proper clean clothes) caught up online and then had a pool day - one of the only hotels we have been in with a pool YAY so the tan is building :) Have a sleeper train bk to Bangkok tonight though - boo hoo fingers crossed for no roaches!!