I have literally just gotten back from the best trekking out of my entire trip so far. It was three days of absolute fun, culture shock, and amazement. There also quite a few firsts: it was the first time I have ridden an elephant, the first time I have showered in a river, the first time I have exerienced an euthentic bamboo raft, and the first time I have gotten bed bugs. Well, technically the bed bugs happened before the trekking began BUT they were definitely still with me throughout the three days. I will start at the beginning.

While staying at the Serenity Hotel (I am giving the name so that anyone who reads this and then travels to Chiang Mai WILL NOT STAY THERE), which is supposed to be a nice hotel, it is not a backpackers place, I got BEDBUGS. I remember when I first found out that bedbugs existed and was so disgusted that I was actually worried about sleeping in my own bed. Well, I woke up at 4 am with bites all over my arms with some on my torso and legs. I was not happy. They were really itchy and ugly and I smelled like tiger balm (which i rubbed all over myself) for the rest of the trip. I told the front desk about it...they didn't seem too bothered.

So Chris and I met up with our new group for the trek. It is a much smaller group than my others (there are 9 of us) and our new leader is a Thai man named Dong. We had to pack that night for the next three days. Some of us used our daypacks, while others rented slightly larger packs (we would be leaving our large packs at the hotel) and the next morning we piled our bags on top of a tuk-tuk (the local transport in thailand, it is a truck with a covered back with two benches facing each other-fits about 8 people) and set off. We first drove to the Tourist Police (where I had been the day before!) because all tourists that go into the jungle must register so its easier to tell if people go missing. The police officer who talked to us was from...Boston! Well, sort of. Actually Westford. And that's as far as our conversation went. Next we headed off to a local market so our guide could pick up some food for us for the next couple of days, then we drove to a waterfall (see photos!) which was gorgeous of course! We could swim for a bit and then we went off in the tuk-tuk again to our lunch spot (fried rice with veg) and then we drove AGAIN to where we would start trekking (i swear we eventually stopped driving!) By this time, it was pretty warm and we started our 4 hour trek through the jungles of northern Thailand. Surprisingly, many part of the jungle looked just like a New England forest! But then you see a fig/banana/papaya/bamboo tree and you are quickly reminded where you are. We hiked to the village that we were going to be staying at for the night (see photos!), got situated, took FREEZING showers, and then ate dinner which was cooked by our local guide. The dinner was sooo good. He made a green curry, mix veg with tofu, veg spring rolls, and steamed rice- definitely one of the best meals I have had while trekking. Too bad that night...none of us slept. It was absolutely freezing cold. Our leader had mentioned it might be a bit chilly but we should be fine wiht just a sleep sheet, not a sleeping bag. He was wrong.

The next morning we got up at 8 am, sat around a dying fire drinking semi decent coffee, had breakfast (fresh pinapple, toast, jam, butter, and hard boiled eggs) and then set off on our second day of trekking. We were trekking to the elephant camp and after 5 sweaty hours, we arrived! Now, some background of me and elephants is needed. In South Africa, I was petrified of elephants. On safari, I would get so scared around them. So, when I walk down a steep steep hill and see a stream with three LARGE elephants just standing in it..my heart starting beating a bit faster. I handled myself cooly until after lunch when we had to get on top of them. Chris and I got on one together, an d then it just started walking off WITH NO ONE LEADING IT!! All the guides were busy helping other people onto their elephants and ours was just heading off into the distance in the WRONG DIRECTION! I started hyperventilating a bit at that point but eventually some one got our elephant in line and all the elephants (6 in total) headed off in the same direction. Just to let you know...riding an elephant is not comfortable. When the elephant steps downhill, you get pitched forward and if you dont hold on, you will fall off. True, we did have a "safety belt", which was a thin piece of rope that we tied on ourselves- not very comforting. After a bit, I calmed down and started really enjoying myself. We could feed them bananas by reaching forward and tapping the banana on their head and then allof a sudden this trunk would be in your face searching blindly for the food! It was great. An hour later we got off the elepants and arrived at the second village we would be staying at.

We were all pretty filthy and hot after the day's fun but the village didn't have showers, just the river. So we all went down and shampoo'd our hair and ended up reallying a lot cleaner than we thought we would after bathing in brown water! For dinner that night we had another amazing meal cooked by our guide: yellow curry, green beans and tofu, pumpkin, steamed rice and absolutely DELICIOUS banana spring rolls. After dinner we sat around a campfire for a bit before retiring to bed...hoping that it might be a little warmer in this village. Turned out..it was! Too bad we were sleeping on top of where the dogs slept and they decided to get into a fight every couple of hours. Needless to say, not to much sleeping happened. but, in the morning, we ahd another nice breakfast (this time scrambled eggs) and then put our valuables in a water proof bag and headed down to a bamboo rafts we would be travelling on for the next 4 hours.

Now, the bamboo rafts were extremely basic. So basic, that they were finishing making them as we walked down. We had two rafts. Mine was 16 pieces of bamboo about 25 feet long tied together with, none other than, bamboo stalk. Out bags were hung on two bamboo sticks at the back of the raft. When you stood on the raft, you were also standing in about 2 inches of water, so it was going to be a wet ride, that only got wetter as we went through miny rapids. It ended up being a lot of fun with good scenery, some elephants and buffalo passed us along the way, and our local guides had fun splashing us and eachother along the way. After 4 hours we finished, had lunch (pad thai, yum) and then took a two hour tuk tuk ride back to Chiang Mai. We arrived here this afternoon, and had a couple hours before we met up for dinner. Tomorrow we board a night train in the afternoon to Bangkok, and then the tour ends at 7 am at the bangkok railway station. I will then head to a hotel to pick up some packages (lonely planets-thanks dad!) and then will hopefully head down the Koh Chang, a thai island that should be beautiful! On April 7 I fly to Budapest!