We left Chiang Mai a couple days ago, got all our guts together and hopped on the truck, off to the jungle. First we made a stop at waterfalls where we went swimming. The water was cold, there was a lot of wind because of the force from the falling water, but it was so cool to stand under it + very refreshing! Then the rain came for the first time, so we stood under a shelter and waited until it was over. Next: the big thing.
The truck dropped us of and we started our little journey through the woods. Our guide, Cha, made a cane out of bamboo for each one of us, we didn’t thought that would be necessary for the walking at that point, but I revised my opinion later. The walking changed in a steep climbing that went on for about two –never seem to ending- hours. But I have to admit that the nature was pretty to walk in and sometimes we could look over the valley the view was amazing. We arrived at our first family and I have to say we were a bit surprised: although it was very primitive, they did have solar panels for some light in our sleeping quarter! It was quit chaotic: a pig, chickens, dogs everywhere you looked there were animals! Our guide made a campfire for us and so we sat, in the middle of the jungle, darkness everywhere, with a bunch of goofy animals, talking until late at night.
Next day we started hiking again in the jungle to the next village. But the rain started falling dozn like water coming out of a shower. There started to form these mud flows on our footpaths. At first it was just difficult to walk, but about two hours later these flows where very big, more like brown mud creeks, flowing very fast between our feet –which were soaking wet btw-. Cha said he had never witnessed that in his 15 years of duty! On top of that we were confronted with a spider (15cm diameter) hanging above our footpath. Guess we came very close to hell at that point, but no were to go but on. At that point I could only thank Buddha –and Cha- for our cane, which was my only method of sense at that time. We finally arrived at the village where we made a trip with the elephants. That was nice but scary, because you sat in these small chair on his back but you could fall out any time. We also encountered the second very big spider on that tour. After that the village people made a bamboo raft for us and took us to the village where we would spend the last night.
This village was very chaotic. People talking all the time, giving their children to us, ugly and dirty dogs running trough our stuff, lots of big spiders… It was also dirtier, very disorganized and no electricity at all. We where very tired and went to bed early, but I don’t think anybody closed an eye that night.
Last day we headed home and that was again a bumpy ride. A very exhausting hike, two hours very steep up -!!- the mountain and one hour descending before we arrived at the place were the truck picked us up. The truck brought us to a village with real long necks! This was a bit scary and felt awkward, it felt like we were looking at animals in the zoo, very touristic unfortunately.
When we came back “home” in our hostel in Chiang Mai we went almost directly to the –very disserved- Thai Massage. It was a bit hard, but oh so nice after the crazy jungle time we had!
Total animal balance:
Salamanders +1000
Big spider (+10 cm diameter): +7
Cockroach: +10
Leeches (per person): +4 !!
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