Thuslywise (not a real word), we packed up our bags on the Sunday, and headed out on Monday morning, first thing. Noom (the legend) sorted us out on the whole thing, got them to knock the price down from 1400 Baht to 1000.
First we stopped at a supermarket to stock up on supplies, which was a box of Pringles and three bottles of water for me, then we had lunch and headed off to ride the elephants! These guys were massive, and it was pretty cool, though I can understand the argument that it's cruel, there is the counter argument that these particular elephants would be dead/never born without the tourist trade. The simple fact is that only a certain population could be sustained in the wild, since habitats have been damaged (/wilfully destroyed for the benefit of western economic designs) and that many elephants are alive simply because they serve a purpose in the tourist market. We never saw the elephants being mistreated, or abused, and the facilities, while basic, did not seem to be cruel. I'm sure PETA would disagree with everything I just said, but then their main contribution to society has been getting hot girls to take their clothes off so . . .
Our group consisted of us four, three french people - Reme, Arno and a girl whose name I forget - and two Korean guys who's names I never got, and Xander from Amsterdam. Good crew, even if conversation was carried out in fairly broken English!
I didn't actually realise quite how agile elephants can be. They were climbing riverbanks,
crossing rockfalls, and they were fucking heavy. There was a kind of mud bank along the route and when we stepped in it, we just sank! But being so powerful, it just kept on walking like it was nothing. It's not an exaggeration to say if it decided to be pissed off, it would have fucking destroyed us! And no amount of poking it with the little wooden driving stick would have stopped it. It was quite funny though when some of the elephants decided to stop for a snack along the way! (See left!) After the elephant ride though, things took an abrupt turn for the tough, when the trekking began. It was about half one in the afternoon and the temperature was already pushing 38C and was probably climbing. We weren't just trekking (that's hiking to you, me and most of Europe), it was up hill and it was hot as the devil's frying pan! I'm not gonna lie, the sweating was off the chart. I literally sweated through a tee shirt in less than an hour . . . and didn't have enough spare clothes to change it. So just had to keep on trucking.
There were moments, I won't lie, in that heat, where I seriously might have just stopped if that was an option - but it wasn't. It was a tough to walk back as to go on after the first hour! I drank two two litre bottles of water in 3 hours, and didn't need to use the toilet. What does that tell you?
All in all though, I did learn some things - one, that when walking through the wilderness you tend to take a lot of breaks, that water is God's own nectar, that a bamboo walking stick is awesomely useful, and finally that LOST is wildly inaccurate in its depiction of living in the wilderness! I'm telling you, there's just no way you can go on one of their little rambles and still look this sexy at the end . . . I'm just saying!
But moving along, after about two hours we arrived at the Batcave - queue endless "I'm Batman" references and a full rendition of "den-a-nena Batman!" because we are the least original people in the whole universe. Our young stalwart Kevin decided the best way out of the cave would be to go out the top, so naturally the rest of us had to follow him, which proved vaguely difficult with the limited number of torches, but with a few strategically placed individuals on the route up, we managed it without any mishaps. 
The cave itself was pretty cool, full of weird rocks, though I only saw one actual bat! Lots of weird rock formations and stalig-things of both the mite and tite variety! We wandered around there for awhile, and between that sitting outside just resting we must have done in another 45 minutes, resting up for the last leg to the village, where we were finally going to be able to rest up for the night! By the way, in this picture you can see Xander in the back, one of the Koreans and Reme, and a bit of someone's leg in case you were wondering. Which you probably weren't. After another hour and a half walking, we finally reached the village, which I think was called Papa John's, but that could have been a different one in the locality. We were quartered just outside the village proper, in a large hut, with kitchen facilities. The best part, at least when we first arrived was the fridge, stocked with cold water, coke and beer! My gods but what a sight that was! I've never seem people fling themselves at such a meagre fridge with such reckless abandon. Within 5 minutes of cresting that final hill, we had stripped off soaking tee-shirts, towelled off and downed a bottle of water each.
Then we started to take in our surroundings.
Suddenly, all the sweating, all the scrapes and falls and feeling like you might die starts to fade and you begin to realise why you did it, why you paid good money to walk up the face of a mountain in blistering heat in a foreign country, when you could be sitting by a swimming pool.
Suddenly, your not an idiot, but your seeing something beautiful, and while I refuse to use the word "unspoiled" it is a gorgeous sight.
Kevin put it quite bluntly the morning before, when he said in his Chicago drawl, "Gonna see some fuckin' nature!"
Wanna see the whole gang? Course you do!
From left to right, there's Korean 1, Korean 2, me, Kevin the American, Mat and Dave from England, Arno from France, Xander from the Netherlands, Girl, and Reme, both from France!
After we settled down, and poured cold water all over ourselves, dinner appeared! and thus, we were happy little bunnies!
Also, after dinner, this appeared, much to our mutual bemusement.
It's exactly what you think it is.
We ate, and drank and smoked and then by about half 9 we were all in bed asleep inside our mosquito nets! Which is by far the earliest I've been to bed in a good long while!
There was more trekking, uphill but the weather was in our favour and it was still early. By about 11 we made it to the waterfall, which was our next stop. Nice, sheltered little spot where there was a wooden hut, structure for us to change in. Kevin hopped in the water and screamed, but only
Suddenly, all the sweating, all the scrapes and falls and feeling like you might die starts to fade and you begin to realise why you did it, why you paid good money to walk up the face of a mountain in blistering heat in a foreign country, when you could be sitting by a swimming pool.
Suddenly, your not an idiot, but your seeing something beautiful, and while I refuse to use the word "unspoiled" it is a gorgeous sight.
Kevin put it quite bluntly the morning before, when he said in his Chicago drawl, "Gonna see some fuckin' nature!"
Wanna see the whole gang? Course you do!
From left to right, there's Korean 1, Korean 2, me, Kevin the American, Mat and Dave from England, Arno from France, Xander from the Netherlands, Girl, and Reme, both from France!
After we settled down, and poured cold water all over ourselves, dinner appeared! and thus, we were happy little bunnies!
Also, after dinner, this appeared, much to our mutual bemusement.
It's exactly what you think it is.
We ate, and drank and smoked and then by about half 9 we were all in bed asleep inside our mosquito nets! Which is by far the earliest I've been to bed in a good long while!
The following morning I was up about half seven, with breakfast served at about 8. We were served a kind egg-fried rice thingy, which was pretty good, though I still can't eat a whole bowl of rice, even after being in Asia for 6 weeks.
There was more trekking, uphill but the weather was in our favour and it was still early. By about 11 we made it to the waterfall, which was our next stop. Nice, sheltered little spot where there was a wooden hut, structure for us to change in. Kevin hopped in the water and screamed, but only because he's never actually been in anything other than a heated pool. Dave was next in, thought it seemed fine, which I'd agree it was! We swam for about three quarters of an hour, maybe a little less. There was various shinnanigans going on -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaHjDw7vIkk
And a natural water slide that was really awesome -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaHjDw7vIkk
And a natural water slide that was really awesome -
That's Dave doing it, I had a go after, but the mist from the water fall was wrecking the camera so I didn't get a video. But anyway, so you shoot down the side, obviously go under the water and then resurface, except there's a vicious current under there, which Dave didn't bother to warn us about so as soon as I came up I was dragged first to the rock wall and then towards the lip of the next waterfall until I caught my bearings and grabbed a rock so I could swim into the middle, where the current was less aggressive. (I wasn't in any danger mother, it's okay!). Kevin actually had a much worse experience because he can't bloody well swim!!!
We were just finishing up when a German family and their guide showed up, much to our mutual amusement. We must have looked pretty funny.
After that it was just a short hike (bout an hour) to a road and down into a village, where we had lunch, mostly consisting of rice. Then we jumped in a truck (and weren't we happy not to be bloody walking for the first time in what seemed like a million years.
Took us about an hour to get to the next stop, where we went "white" water rafting down a river for about an hour - it was pretty fun, though not really tough going. There were some tricky rapids, but nothing that knocked anyone out of the boat at any point. I actually ended up sharing a boat with two other Irish people from a different trek, who told us a few good places to check out around Chiang Mai.
After that we had about 15 minutes of bamboo rafting, but we might as well have skipped it, it was pretty shit. It amounted to standing/sitting on some bamboo as it floated down the river. Oooh, exciting!
Then we dried off - (sort of) - while some local Thai's tried to sell us a bunch of crappy stuff that no one wanted, and some photos that people did want, and then we were on the road back to civilization, exhausted and happy as fuck, despite cuts, bruises and welts. We survived, we made it and we didn't break in the process, though, my hand still has a few scrapes and cuts from thorns and weird plants with leaves made of razor blades!
Back at the hostel, it was time to scrub up and get ready for a night out with the hostel peoples, because it was someones birthday.
Here's a sneak peek of what happened next!
That's the entire hostel having a night out for one of the girl's birthday party!
I'll fill you in next time!
This is Shane, signing out!
We were just finishing up when a German family and their guide showed up, much to our mutual amusement. We must have looked pretty funny.
After that it was just a short hike (bout an hour) to a road and down into a village, where we had lunch, mostly consisting of rice. Then we jumped in a truck (and weren't we happy not to be bloody walking for the first time in what seemed like a million years.
Took us about an hour to get to the next stop, where we went "white" water rafting down a river for about an hour - it was pretty fun, though not really tough going. There were some tricky rapids, but nothing that knocked anyone out of the boat at any point. I actually ended up sharing a boat with two other Irish people from a different trek, who told us a few good places to check out around Chiang Mai.
After that we had about 15 minutes of bamboo rafting, but we might as well have skipped it, it was pretty shit. It amounted to standing/sitting on some bamboo as it floated down the river. Oooh, exciting!
Then we dried off - (sort of) - while some local Thai's tried to sell us a bunch of crappy stuff that no one wanted, and some photos that people did want, and then we were on the road back to civilization, exhausted and happy as fuck, despite cuts, bruises and welts. We survived, we made it and we didn't break in the process, though, my hand still has a few scrapes and cuts from thorns and weird plants with leaves made of razor blades!
Back at the hostel, it was time to scrub up and get ready for a night out with the hostel peoples, because it was someones birthday.
Here's a sneak peek of what happened next!
That's the entire hostel having a night out for one of the girl's birthday party!
I'll fill you in next time!
This is Shane, signing out!
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