Sawatdee Khrab! (Hello in Thai)

Well, this blog entry will have to go off in English to include our new friends we met on this wild jungle-adventure. As you might already know, your most beloved boys are back in town, healthy and smiling after three days in the wilderness of Thailand. (Forresten blir denne kanskje litt kort, siden jeg i gaar skrev en helt latterlig lang en, men pc'en shutta ned 40 sekund foer tida og jeg fikk dermed ikke lagret, saa jeg var ganske bitter paa dette systemet! Men vi proever igjen i dag.. Og naa fikk jeg nettopp en hel del slettet igjen saa slutten blir kanskje ikke helt utfyllende men..)

DAY 1:

We got picked up (in a pick-up) at 9.30 from our Guesthouse in Chiang Mai City. We met up with our group that we were going to trek together with. In addition to us, there were four others, a Dutch man and his wife in the 40's, and a French father-and-son-team, the son 25 years old. We drove for about 30min to a local marked to buy some foodsupplies for the trip. After that we headed for a more bumpy road into the outback. At first, to our big surprise we stopped at an elephant farm. We did not know that we were going to ride on elephants so this was a great way to start our journey! At first I really looked foreward to this, but that was before I knew what kind of crazy beast MJ and I were about to climb on to! We were the first ones to climb on to one, and almost the first ones beeing thrown right off one. The elephant started moaning and blowing his trunk as it jumped around and ran uncontrollable for the EJ (elephant jockey, eller sjaafoer om dere vil)! During the 40 minutes ride we had to buy him at least 10kg of bananas to please him, afraid that he would try a stunt yet again. This was a really fun experience but for Markus and Rune it turned out to be quite relaxing, maybe even to the brink of boring. Anyway, after the riding we headed for lunch, where we had a ricemeal before the first walking started. We walked, mostly uphill, for about two hours before we stopped at a waterfall to cool down after a most dense walk from all the sweating, we were soaked after the first 15 minutes of walking. After the swim, we walked for another two hours before we arrived the camp in which we were going to spend the night. The camp was located just 5 minutes from a local village and had its place in beautiful surroundings! It got completely dark at around 6 o'clock and after one hour of relaxation we got served a most local dinner. It was a tasteful chicken soup with potatoes on rice. The chicken were slayed in front of our eyes! This night we went straight to bed after the dinner, pretty tired from all the walking.

DAY 2:

We woke up as the rooster crew (da hanen gol), and were ready for a new and exiting day of junglelife! For breakfast we got served a nice type of Thai-pancakes. This was definetely the day for uphill climbing, a real climbing stage! The French had no problems keeping up with the pace of the Norwegian mountain-goats as they were from Albertville and really used to this kind of mountain-walking. The Dutch pair however, had a great struggle with the steep mountain-sides. We know that Holland is as flat as Danmark, and they, beeing from Amsterdam as well, were not used to wild nature.The 'climbing' lasted for about two hours until the terrain flattened out. We enjoyed a deliciuos noodle-soup for lunch before we stopped to have a cooling swim at a waterfall more beautiful than the last, about one hour walk from the the lunch site. The waterfall was only 15 minutes away from the village in which we were going to spend the night, and just like that, another day of hiking had come to an end. The dinner we got served consisted of a BBQ-pork-stick (grillspyd med kjoett fra en lokalt slaktet gris) and a rice 'n curry dish as well. This was the last night so we (except from MJ) decided not to go straight in to bed, and stayed up chattering with the locals and tasting their home-grown tobacco and rice-whiskey. We also had some music entertainment around the camp-fire (de spilte paa noen rare floeyter, Mr. TM Vesterhus hadde neppe vaert imponert, men morro var det). In spite of the time around the campfire, we were in bed by 8 o'clock, so it wasn't really that bad.

DAY 3:

A breakfast that looked A LOT like an English one (eggs, toast etc.) pretty much gave us the strength and energy we needed for the last day of hiking. We started with a two hours walk before we could have some fun-time at another waterfall, this one the most fun becouse of the slope-formed rocks that we could slide on. As you might have guessed, this was definetely the day for the downhill stage, and it was the easier stage of the tour. After a short walk we got picked up and droven to a river, were bamboo-rafting was on the program. This was great fun and it got a bit wet as well, so MJs camera almost died that day ;-p But we made it! And happy that we brought a camera so we have some memories from this as well.

Ja, kjaere folk der heime i snoekaos og diverse, haaper dere alle har det fint! Vi er alle friske og raske og koser oss i VARMEN! Hehe.. Om ikke mange timene flyr vi til Laos for a bruke noen paa vannsport foer turen gaar videre til VietNam.

Dere hoerer nok fra oss om ikke altfor lenge da det er masse aa fortelle om hele veien. Dessuten har vi endelig faatt lagt ut noen bilder, men flere kommer! Vi lover! MJ har gjort en forrykende innsats for aa faa ut de som ligger ute naa, det er nemlig ikke 'bare bare' med internetthastigheter som ikke likner grisen! Ellers hilser Rune og Markus masse, det er de sin tur til aa skrive neste gang ;)

Til neste gang

MJ, Markus, Rune & Sigurd

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