Day 24 - Chiang Mai

Early rise today at 6.30am to get ready and have breakfast before we were picked up at 8. We had booked a day tour, and we had a one hour drive squeezed in the back of a very hot truck. Our first stop was the akai village. We visited the akai people who live in the jungle in little bamboo huts and eat any food they can find in the jungle. It was really interesting and not as awkward as when we went to the Masai village. They had their craft shops and everything but there was no pressure to buy. One of the houses had a pet dog outside who was not happy at all at us being there! We were walking around and came across three huge pigs in a tiny cage - obviously dinner - and then a guy came over to them with a huge blade. I quickly got away just incase it was time to kill haha I didnt want to see that! So we spent some time at the village and then headed back into the truck for 20 minutes to the elephant village. We were really excited as we were going to do an elephant trek. So we waited on a raised platform for the elephant trainers to guide the elephants over for us to climb on. Michael and I had bought a bunch of bananas to feed the elephant when we were on. We were near the back of the queue to get on one and every elephant that came over could smell the bananas so they were lifting their trunk over and trying to find them. It was so funny trying to avoid the big snottery trunk while standing on a raised platform with hardly any space to move. Finally our elephant came along. The trainer was sitting on his head having a cigar looking chilled out. He came over and we both climbed on to the seat on it's back. As soon as we were on, the elephant went awol! He made a run for the exit and the trainer was shouting commands and pulling on the ropes, pretty much freaking out haha. He got control and turned the elephant the direction of the rest and we started the trek through the jungle. We soon realised that our elephant was the biggest of them all, and he was a bit of a rebel - so I was terrified. The whole time the trainer struggled to control him! It was really fun though, we were going down really steep hills and through trees and rivers. The elephant was snapping tree trunks with it's trunk and throwing them around! At one point it took a big drink of muddy puddle water, turned it's trunk up and sprayed it all over us haha. I thought Michael was gonna be sick! After another few tries from the elephant to go wherever he wanted to, we returned about an hour later. I was very glad to get off! And stayed back until our big elephant was well out of the way. As much as I loved the experience, I hated the way they were treated. The trainers use pick axes to control them. They hook them under the ears and pull when they dont go the right way, and if they really go awol like ours, they smack them with the ax. We noticed a few of them had blood running down their heads by the end. Afterwards I really wished we hadnt given money to these people and encouraged it! Anyway, we had a good lunch here after the elephant trek and then headed off to do a jungle trek on foot this time. I really enjoyed this part. We had a one hour trek, walking through the jungle which meant we had to climb over rocks and fallen trees, trail through lots of mud and cross some rivers. It was quite tough going in the beat but we were definitely rewarded for it! After the hour we came across an amazing waterfall with a pool at the bottom. So we stripped down to our bikinis and shorts and jumped straight in. It was so cold but so good after the trek. The water came down so fast that I couldn't breath when I stood under it! It was amazing! We swam for about 20 minutes then dried off before the second and last hour of our jungle trek. It was much more difficult this time as it was all down hill, wet and slippy. it didn't seem to take as long though. After the trek we drove again for 20 minutes down to a river where we had the best part of our day - White water rafting. Looking at the river I was really scared because it was moving so fast and we could see all the rapids swirling about. But it was so much fun! We had a quick lesson on how to do it and the commands we had to take and then got in the dingy. There was five to a boat so me, Michael, Nicola, Lynsey and a random guy shared. We also had a person who worked there to help us live through it. At first it was really relaxing, we just floated down the river paddling a little bit and looking at all the huge trees surrounding us. It pretty quickly became much more lively! We couldn't stop laughing and screaming, we had so many close calls with people falling out of the boat and so many rapids coming completely over us and filling the boat with water. We came again to another quiet part where he said we could swim, so we all jumped out and were floating down in the current. When he told us to get back in only Michael could climb on, so he had to drag us in to the boat with our life jackets haha. As soon as we got back in the boat we noticed it was full of water spiders! Nicola and Lynsey were jumping about screaming, I wasn't too bothered until I realised one had crawled half way up my leg! We started hitting some more rapids which were even stronger this time. After 40 mins we were to transfer to a bamboo raft to have a relaxing drift down the last part of the river. Our guide was a bit of a joker and had turned the raft upside down, so when we got on it sat about six inches under water. It was so hard to stay on we were all falling in the whole way - it was so funny. Michael was captain and had a big bamboo stick to push us down the river in the right direction but we were rocking from side to side and falling all over the place. When we came to end we pulled in and all stood up to get off the raft and it completely disappeared haha! Michael didn't go down with his ship like a real captain! Absolutely knackered, we sat down and had some juice and chocolate before getting back in the truck home.