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Date: 17th May 2011
Place: Chiang Mai
Weather: Raining!!!
Waking up early is never fun, but it makes it extra hard work after only around 3 hours sleep. We had to check out of the room and leave our main backpacks in the store room and just use the daypacks they had leant us.
As in Thai style they were about 45minutes late setting off. We picked up a few people along the way, 3 French girls, 1 french guy and a couple; one American and one south afircan. It was a fare drive and we stopped off at a market along the way to get some food for the night. I bought some water, a coffee which was soo appreciated, and a little watch that I had been looking for for ages because it was so light.
Along the way to the jungle the truck stopped to pick something up. They said to us then do we want to sit on the roof? Of course I said yes! Pretty much as soon as we set off though it started to rain, and hard! I couldn't keep my eyes open because of it and then ended up getting hit in the face by twigs and branches. In the end we all lay down the whole time it was raining just so we could dodge them.
It did brighten up though and then it was great fun. The driver kept on going on the very side bits of the road so that it would scare us, and went over bumps, it was hilarious. We had a before and after picture to show our states when we arrived at the temple for lunch.
After sitting and eating our lunch we were took up a load of stairs to see a giant golden Buddha. There were also a few people in a room praying because it was the most important day of the year for Buddhists, almost like Christmas. It was the day Buddha was born, became enlightened and died but all on different years.
When we got back down all of the stairs we head off again to the start of the trek. I put on my rain jacket straight away because I knew it would tip it down again. The first part of the trek was hard work because it was downhill, slippy and we were just getting used to it. Then the guys, I called them Frodo and Gollum, made us walking sticks out of bamboo and it made it so much easier. They even made us hats out of banana leaves, they could do anything!!
The walk was about 3 hours through jungle and over rivers and through rice fields. Our entertainment was the guys sometimes seeming like a double act like when we were walking over leaves they stood at the top shouting leeches leeches everywhere; you had to be there. Then when we had to cross a river on a fallen tree trunk they both stood on it and bounced then as we were crossing they would throw rocks in the water so it splashed us. They knew so much about the jungle like all of the leaves and they even showed up a leaf that you could pull apart the stem and blow bubbles from it!
We all cheered when we got to camp. It was quite a nice place with a campfire and just one big bedroom for all of us. I hung up all of my clothes to dry because the rain jacket was useless! They made us dinner which was sooo nice and we all sat around the camp fire for a couple of hours listening to the guitar being played and doing some stick puzzles. We were so tired that a few of us went to bed at 8pm!
- comments
Gran Another amazing experience to add to all your other adventures. So different from the beaches of the southern islands. Even getting so wet didn't dampen your spirits. Is this the area where malaria is a threat?... wet jungle. Oz and NZ might seem pretty tame after all this.