Leading on from my next blog I went trekking in the jungle, we had a pre brief in the reception of the guesthouse where we met Galoo our guide for the trek there were ten of us all together two Canadian girls, Rebecca and Alexis, 3 German lads, Florien, Fabian and Max, 2 French girls, Alixa and Lianna, me and an English couple Sue and Paul who have been travelling the world for a year . We were all handed a camouflage rucksack and a plastic bag and a list of items to take with us. I'm glad I went with my gut instinct and took a jumper and trousers with me ,it gets cold at night in the jungle!!
The following morning bright and early grabbed some breakfast and then of we went all in the back of a safari style truck with our bags. Our first stop was a local market so we could pick up anything we were missing torches etc etc, then on with the tour and our next stop was a beautiful waterfall which we could all swim in it was cold but good fun after this we went for some dinner then onto the hot springs and the start of our 5 hour trek up into the jungle through a couple of traditional villages glad I had a couple of litres of water with me it was a hard slog in 34 degree heat and 100% humidity! We got to our final village just before dark and found we were sleeping on the floor of a large hut on a very thin mattress with a quilt and a mossie net. Dinner was served and it was lovely a nice curry rice an some spring rolls and well earned after the hike! During dinner Galoo brought out in his words "the happy water" I'm not entirely sure what it was but it some herbs floating around in it and burned on the way down it came served with some deep fried crickets, when in Rome!, I quite enjoyed them really, very crispy they were. We then lit a couple I sky lanterns and some firecrackers and had a sing song session around the camp fire which was a bit unexpected but Galoo did a good job off rousing the troops! After all of this it was time for bed didn't get much sleep I could hear all sorts of animals moving around outside and it was freezing! Next morning up bright and early as I heard the mahout go off to find the elephants and bring them back to the village.
After breakfast, I had brought with me a Nottingham Forest football top, Mansfield Town and a Dutch top I handed these out to some of the locals it went down quite well and I find it funny that a thai women in a remote village is walking around in a forest top as I write this.
Hen all packed up and ready to go it was breakfast for the elephants of large bunches of bananas after this it was into the river for a morning bath for all of us including the elephants. After this was done and we were dried off 5 of us got onto the elephants and the other five loaded up a bamboo raft and it was off down the river swapping over after an hour and then at the last village it was time to say bye to the elephants and onto the rafts down the river through the jungle, bit disappointed I never got to see any wild life just lots of trees an beautiful butterflies bamboo rafting was lots of fun but I think some of my team was glad when I handed over the reigns after I caused a crash! Ill stick to being a passenger. The river was lovely to swim in but a bit hairy at some of the rapids and everyone ended up a bit wet. Last stop was at the top of the very big rapids, that you can only go down in a boat, where we had dinner got changed and headed back in the truck back to the guesthouse.
I had a great time and met some great people I can highly recommend it! Even the deep fried crickets xo