We were rudely woken up this morning at some ridiculous hour by a bloody cockerel crowing to its mate up the hill. We managed to fall back asleep and eventually got up about 7.45ish. We all sat around for a while talking and getting changed and we were served scrambled eggs, toast and jam for breakfast. I thought it was pretty good and nice of them to serve us a western style breakfast seen as though they eat noodles, rice and meat for every meal!! We set off on the next part of the trek about 10ish, I assumed that as we'd come so far uphill that today would be downhill and flat... After the first hour I thought it was going to be another day like the first, whenever we went downhill we just went back uphill again, my legs mustn't have recovered from the day before and struggled with the uphill bits. I think Harry must have realised that we were finding it quite tough and stopped for more rest breaks today! We were going to another Hilltribe village for lunch, this one being a lot bigger than the one we slept at last night. The one we slept at was the Karen Hilltribe village and they had about 20 homes or so, the village we were heading to for lunch had over 200 people and 65 famillies living there. On the way to the village we stopped for a rest break next to some rice paddy fields, it was at this point that I thought that perhaps Adam and I should have been taking out malaria tablets but we weren't and we didn't have them with us so couldn't start taking them either. A couple of Irish girls, Lisa and D, they weren't taking any either. I think we just assumed Chiang Mai, being mainland Thailand wasn't a malaria risk but we didn't plan on trekking through the jungle, that was a spur of the moment decision! Anyway we eventually made it to the village and we had noodle soup for lunch, it was ok, nothing special. We were staying in the village for a couple of hours so we could either go explore the village, or they had a house free for us if we wanted to sleep or we could just do what we wanted... I thought it would be nice to go and check out the local school so we all set off to find it. We walked up in to the next bit of the village but couldn't see no school, nor was there anyone around to ask. We headed back to where we had lunch and saw one man sat outside his house building what looked like a bamboo bin for carrying things, we went and asked him where the school was but he couldn't speak English, all he could say is USA? To ask if we were American! We just went back to where we had lunch and a few of us played cards and just sat around talking!
We had been told that the trek after lunch was easier than the mornings trek, in some ways it was as it was quite a lot of downhill but as it had rained the night before it made the ground really slippy and guess who slipped down a hill in the mud and got mud all up her legs and backside? Me, of course!! A couple of other people slipped too later on so I didn't feel too bad! The route that the trek takes you on is in some parts beyond dangerous, if you were walking at home you just wouldn't go some of the routes that we were taken but we just had to get on with it. I did a few times consider faking a broken leg so I could get out of doing it but I persevered and got through it! We eventually reached the waterfall where we were going to be sleeping, it was really nice and as there was no shower at this village we all got our swimming stuff on and headed in to the waterfall to clean up. It was really refreshing and cool, the waterfall was really heavy too so it felt like a massage if you stood under it!! We all said that in the villages instead of selling bracelets and tack that people don't really want, if the women gave massages, they would make a killing! We all got changed and sat around playing cards and drinking a few beers, Simon asked the boys if they would help him collect some wood to make a fire with so the boys went off and did that for a while. We had a seated area which was under a high roof where we were going to build the fire. It was a good job it was under cover as it started to rain, the rain was the heaviest rain I have ever seen, the path leading to the bungalows looked like a river in itself and the actual river looked like it was going to burst its banks, the waterfall was so powerful and strong with the extra water, Adam got some pictures of it before the rain and during the rain, it was crazy!! We had another chicken curry style dish for tea and also a pumpkin curry, with rice. They were both really good. After tea Adam and I played snap with Jordan and Gessika, a couple of Canadians, they had never played snap before, in fact quite a few of the group had never played it, only Adam and I, Lisa and D (the Irish girls) and David and Neville (2 Scottish guys) knew how to plat, after a while Harry the guide came to join us and we tried to teach him how to play snap, I think he got it, he was just never fast enough to win a hand!! Adam and I headed to bed about half 10ish leaving David and Neville up alone, we left them with the cards and went to get some sleep. The sound of the rain and the river blocked out the sound of all the insects in the jungle so we managed to get quite a bit of sleep!