So, right where on earth to start?! -Am I gald I went on the treck? oh yes. -Would I have changed anything? Indeed! -Was it gruelling, hellish, painful and miserable? Quite often yes! -Did I learn about Thailand? Thank god, yes. I did gain some cultural insight into real life. And thats what made it worthwhile. Along with the elephant treck which was absolutely awesome. A much better ride than camel (Mongolia, Egypt, Tunisia). I will start with the first morning of the treck, and work through this sorry story gradually. Maybe by the end you will have the same understanding of what the word 'treck' entails, the evilness of malaria tablets, details and instructions of squat toilets, how to master the art of blister expansion and some interesting little facts about village life. Here goes. It didn't start well. Not well at all! Through the night before we started I had very little sleep due to a strange uneasiness in my stomach. The cause was not butterflies! Once up the next morning I felt very ill and was consequently sick before breakfast. Note: this is the first time in as long as I can remember that I have been physically sick for reasons unrelated to alcohol. Something wasnt right. However, the treck had to go on, or start in this case! It began with 2 hours in a open-backed van, surrounded by traffic fumes as we meandered our way around the outskirts of Chaing Mai. Not the happiest of times. still feeling very ill and somewhat daut\nted by the 3 day teck ahead, something I very much did not feel up to at this point. Lunch of very plain noodles and pineapple followed a taster-treck to see a pretty waterfall and a swim in the nearby river. This mini-treck was already quite arduous, clambering up very steep hillsides in the afternoon heat. Very much an insight into what was to come. Four hours of trekking. I think my memory has erased the worst parts to save me from the trauma. All I know is that it was VERY hard. A lot of uphill continuous clambering, no stopping in our single file line of 12 Intrepid travellers. Oh yes, our group. Hmmm abother story. But there was a mix of us. One Aussie family (Greg, Helen, Steph and Jason), two sisters-twins also from the land down under (Emma and Sarah), a Canadian woman (Patti), American guy our age studying at Brown (Andrew), a Belguim guy who didnt spek very much (Johan), and another American -Sherry: a teacher, sprained her anle the first day and thus got a motorcycle ride for rest of the treck from a local, was very envious!!! Anyhoo, back to the first day.... highlights: -saw a fluffy black poisonous caterpillar, much to my enjoyment! very very cute! -Sun, our treck guide, with his 'Oh my Buddha!' explamations every 10 minutes and his sad account of his plight to find a wife. He's from one of the villages we visited and much of his family are now concerned of his remaining bachelorhood. -introduction to squat toilets a la Thailand. see photos! Basically you have actual squat toilet, surrounded most commonly by muddy water, praying is actually water! around the edges. Once you have deposited whatever you needed to in the hole that is the toilet all loo roll is placed in a seperate bag by the side, then you fumble around trying to locate the ladle in the water tank to act as a flush. This all doesnt sound too bad, huh? Quite basic and simple. Well lets add the second water tank right next to that used for the flush, which acts as a container for water to douse down u for a shower. Nice. And yes if you were wondering, same ladle is used. So back to the first day. Finally arrived as the rain hit, reminding us it was infact wet season. Absolute bliss to lie down on the floor boards that would be our mattresses for the night. However, with this treck any good moment is usually followed by some bad ones. Nicki grew paler and paler throughout dinner (a hard task if you know of her complection!) and proclaimed that she wanted to be sick. Oh dear. A bucket was rapidly located and held tight for the rest of the evening. All in all she was sick seven times though the night. Fortuately I had some rehydration sachets which served to make her sick instead of actually rehydrating her. However, as I pointed out, this was a positive, as she kept feeling as though she hadnt been sick enough to get all of whatever it was out. So yes a hard night! that lead into day two! Oh at this point I should add that trough the first day the back of feet continued to hurt more and more. Tad annoying, but never had enough tim in one of our infrequent stops to inspect them. This was a bad move. One I very much regret. Once at the village, wheer we slept the first night I discovered huge blisters on both my feet. Through my ignorance I believed they would be cured by plasters and another layer of socks. So day two. We had an interesting walk around the village, where we were introduced to Sun's 100 year old grandmother and shown the grounds of the local school. This is the village where I took a few pics of groups of kids playing along a path. That was really ool to see. Just real life. Before setting off on another torturous day of trekking we were informed that we would climb the towering hills behind us (at first I thought this was a somewhat amusing joke, as did most of the group, oh no! how foolish we were!) We couldn't actually see the tops of the hills as they climbed high into th mist and clouds above. I felt like crying! But we trudged on. Over an hour of up hill climbing, in the heat, with (I forgot this part form day one) a frickin heavy backpack on containing 2 litres of water, all our clothes and sleeping stuff needed for the 3 day excursion. The gradient of htese hills weer about 60 degrees and we hardly ever stopped! Nicki found it especially difficult as she was pretty weak from the night before. In the end we went on ahead, cutting short a group break and actually managed to get to our next village earlier than the others! HaHa! Oh I forgot to mention. We discovered the cause of our sickness: bloody malaria tablets! Which Sun told us were actually unnessary in this area! Learn form this: some malaria tablets have very bad side effects, only take them when really have to! So day two: rest of day after the days' hiking was spent lounging around the hut, watching the very sweet baby, Lilly toddle around, wandering around the village: best part of which was wathing a women weave clothes and three siblings play with a skip rope ties around two posts. (see pics) very very sweet. they didnt seem to care one bit that we were theer and just continued to play their games. We also: washed in the lake, endured a Thai massage (yes enduring-not all that relaxing or kind on muscles) watched the loacl children queue up and enjoy the cooked eggs we bought them (see pics), asked and answered questions from the local kids, had a singing session with them, whereby we recounted some well-known English songs, and them some Thai ones. It was quite shoking the lack of group knowledge over song lyrics. The best we remembered altogether was baabaa black sheep, twinkle twinkle and old macdonald had a farm. We couldnt even manage Jack and Jill! The evening sitting with the kids was actually quite magical. Sun was very sweet with them, making them laugh at his dancing. We were all able to enjoy some time together, albeit oming from such different backgrounds and cultures. Its sometimes lovely to see how similar we all can be to each other, as well as enjoying the diversity between us. Day three: relatively nicer, although treckking again on zero sleep. those floors!!! Not so much up hill which was awesome. Also Nicki and I conceived the plan to fly to Ko Samui, our next destination instead of training it down to Bangkok and then to the south, which would have meant over 25 hours on a train. We alos decided a well needed gentle oil massage was in order on our return to Chiang Mai. Soemthing to look forward to! Elephant trekking rounded off our 3 day stint in the hills and it was amazing. Really really lovely. Just look at the photos. Both Nicki and I through some complicated manouvering, were able to ride on the front of the elephant, 'steering' (our elephant did not understand this concept and walked anywhere it pleased, all the more fun I thought!) We alos got to feed him a bag of bananas, which was clearly appreciated. Very fun feeding elephants. Little facts we learnt about the villages: we were visiting the Karen tribe (am sure this is not the corrct spelling). Theer are 6 subsets of this tribe, and we vsisted 2 of these. Another one, on the Thai border are known as the long necks as they have the silver, circular necklaces piled up on their necks. Theres been quite a few pics of them as thy are so unusual. So you priobably know who Im talking about. Women who are not married traditionally wear white, from a very early age, even baby Lilly-part of the family we were staying with on the second night, had her own white dress. Mothers are expected to create these dressed in one day, the sucess of which supposedly brings good luck to the girl. Married women wear bright coloured clothes, often shades of red. All in all, it was a real expereince. It allowed us to gain an insight into Thai village life and was a real endurance test! Now that we're lounging on sunbeds in Ko Samui, we feel no guilt at enjoying the sun or of the inescapable tourism on this island, as we know we have experienced something real of Thailand, that we worked for.