Chiang Mai two day trek

We were up early and had a quick breakfast to get ready for our trek. There were eleven of us in total and we were all loaded up into the back of a truck. It was a pickup truck with two bench seats in the back with room for ten people. This is fine for short drives but we had a two hour drive! I think my spine is bruised from bouncing back into the wall at the back of the truck.
We stopped on the way to our trek spot at some hot springs. It was my first time at hot springs. It was so crazy! They also filled a couple of small pools with water from the springs. It felt like swimming in a hot tub!
When everyone was finished and changed we set off for our hike. We walked for three hours up and down the mountain trail. When we were a little higher from the starting point we saw the super hot section of hot springs. The water was bubbling and boiling hot! It was so bizarre to see.
The start of the trek was mainly climbing uphill with small downhill sections before going back up. The end of the trek was a very long section of fairly steep downhill trekking. After three hours we arrived in a hill tribe village where we would be spending the night. The four of us helped our guide, named Tree, prepare our dinner. We sat in a back room in candle light chopping vegetables. When everything was prepared everybody sat at a big table for dinner. It was a fun day and night! After food we played a big game of "s***head". It is a card game that 12 people could all play together with enough card decks scrounged up! I won the game but in s***head it doesn't matter. Everyone wins except for the very last person.
We were tired from our day and short sleep the night before and went to bed around ten. Everybody slept in a big room with thin mattresses on the floor and mosquito nets. I slept fine enough. It was a usual sleep of waking up quite a bit and having to use the bathroom once. Going to the bathroom was more of a challenge than normal. I had to find my head lamp and venture outside into the black night to the toilet. It was slightly creepy! I also heard the couple that got engaged on the trek (that night) shuffle a bit too much for my comfort in their sleeping bags nearby! Ew!
We woke up for coffee and French toast made by Tree and set off again. Tree showed us the big gardens the tribe had and explained what many plants were. We hiked up and down the jungle path for two hours until we arrived at our next pit stop. We went to another small village where we would be leaving for an elephant ride. We bought some bananas and fed our new friends. We were all a little sad seeing these elephants compared to the ones from the sanctuary we were at days before. These elephants didn't look as healthy or happy, almost like a massive elephant version of Eeyor from Winnie the Pooh. These elephants also had big wooden chairs strapped on them for us to sit on. Despite the visual signs the elephants sounded to have a good life. They live in the middle of the jungle far away from city life. They are also free to roam as they please at night, however their legs are chained together so they can not run too far away. Every morning the owners set our in the jungle and search for their massive pets.
We rode the amazing creatures for around an hour and a half. We went across a river, down river, and beside the river. It was pretty amazing to see such huge powerful animals slowly sauntering through water that came to the top of their legs. It was another very cool experience with elephants. I felt like riding bare back the other day was more comfortable for me than the bamboo chair. I assume the elephant would also be more comfortable to shed the awkward chair and padding from it's back!
After our long ride on the elephants we hiked a little further to another village. Here we ate some noodle soup and relaxed while Tree and another man fixed up some bamboo rafts. After we ate it was time to leave....on the bamboo rafts. Raft is a bit of an over statement. The "rafts" were 12-15 shoots of bamboo about 15 feet long tied together with bamboo cut thinly into "rope". The group was split into two and loaded on the rafts. The other group was too heavy for their raft and Tree had to go fetch more bamboo shoots and tie them on so they would be able to float down the river.
Our boat was captained by a local man and steered by Jason and I. We were given 12 foot long green bamboo shoots like the captains. Our instructions were basically "Be Rambo not lady boy. Push hard. No titanic, are you Rambo? Ok!" lol! No joke. Tree showed us how to hold our shoots and when the captain said left we were to dig into the river and push left as hard as possible. Have I mentioned we were going down the river through rapids? Yep we were in charge of pushing us away from the rocks that would potentially capsize us! And remain standing of course while everyone else sat and held on. Sounds great! We were up for it and they did give us life jackets to our surprise!
The rafting was SO fun!! When we looked around at the scenery as we floated down the river it was amazing. Massive trees and hills, and even random buffalo hanging out in the water watching us as we went past.
The river was a combination of just easily floating along with the current, small rapids we had to maneuver with our trusty bamboo sticks, and huge rapids that almost sent us under!! On one occasion we had made it through the rapid no problem when all the sudden I was up to my thighs in water. Everyone sitting was soaking wet holding on as hard as they could. Our guide was shouting left but both Jason and I had our bamboo as deep as possible and could not touch bottom. The guide then noticed what had happened. Our nice formation of positions on the raft had changed. The other guy on our boat and his girlfriend had moved up to where Niki and Michelle were and caused our trusty bamboo to nosedive. We recovered just in time and came back to the surface and steadied without losing anybody.
The raft ride lasted an hour and a half. It was so awesome! Definitely a cool experience!
Once we made it to the next village we were fed some delicious pad Thai and loaded back up into out super uncomfortable pickup and bumped our way down the windy road back to Chiang Mai.