Chilling in Chaing Mai.

Trek was fantastic. Not really sure where to start so I'll try and remember back to the beginning.

Headed off in the morning of what everday it was 4 days ago. Met everyone else that was coming on the trek, about 10 I think. Stopped off to pick up some supplies (beer, whisky) and then headed out of the city. I was luck as it was a really great crowd of people from all over the world.

From left to right: Clint (Canada),Kathleen (USA), Isabella (Austria), Wes (USA), Peter (Holland), Tony (Spain), Gemma (England), Ronit (Israel), Eugene (Malaysia).

The trek started with a few hours was through some farm land. followed by lunch at one of the hill tribe villiages.



After lunch the trek got a bit more intense with some rough terrain and lots of hills. After a couple of hours we were all knackered and roasting so cooled off at a waterfall.

We got to the camp in the early evening. This was basically afew huts in the hills. One for sleeping, one for eatting, one for cooking, a toilet and a shower. One of the Thai guides set a fire for us but wasn't up to much and soon went out so I used my old camping skills to sort it out and soon had an impressive blaze. We than had dinner and started on the beer and whisky.

After dinner the playing cards came out and the drinking games started. After that its a bit hazy but Tony got upset that I made a lot of noise when I came to bed and started asking him for more blankets to which he replied (Hey man, I'm not your mummy!)

The next day of the trek was even better. The walking wasn't to hard on this day and after a couple of hours we reached another hill tribe village where we met our elephants which would carry us to our camp for the night.

Me and Gemma aboard a 40 year old Phant.

The elephant ride was fantastic and lasted about an hour. Our camp for the night was in a hill tribe village. The people in this village came from Burma (I think about 15 years ago). Some were christian and some buddist. We sat down to have some dinner and then the villagers came out and danced round the fire for us. After they had finnished they got us up and we all had a dance.

As it was now quite late we got the whisky and the cards out and started playing some more drinking games. I was sitting next to a couple of guys from the village and got chatting to them. They are trying to learn english but all they have to help them is a phrase book. They were doing pretty well with it but bacause it was a book they were having trouble with the pronunciation. We had a few whiskys and I helped them out which means they will probably now be speaking some english phrases with a scottish accent. One of them had a congo so we played that for a bit and drank some more.

I taught the guys some songs I know from sesame street and then amazed then with my snapping fingers and water dropping sound tricks. After that we were all abit drunk and I got quite sick. Our thai trek guide was very worried I would stagger off into the Jungle not to be seen again but luckily Gemma found me and gave me a push in the direction of the sleeping hut.

In the morning we got to speak to the hill tribe people some more and they had jewlery that had made for us to buy.

The hill tribe people were fantastic, really friendly. One of the most amazing things was meeting the local kids. They were all so happy all they time, running about playing and really excited to meet us all. The kids loved my digital camera so I spent some time making videos of them and then playing them back.

It's strange to think about growing up in a village in the jungle, never having any computers to play with or credit cards to worry about, but they are all really happy and it makes me think that the things we think are important in the west just cause us problems.

We headed off from the village and after walk through some plantations we came to the next camp where we ahd lunch and then boarded bamboo rafts. The bamboo rafting was fantastic and we sailed along for about an hour on the rafts, finally coming to our destination and going for a quick swim before the 2 hour truck ride back to Chaing Mai.

It was quite sad that the trek was over cos we all had such a great time. We all went out to dinner together after and took our tour guide Daing along with us for a meal. We then headed out to a fantastic roof top bar for some beers.

Today we all stuck together again and hired motorbikes. It was a long day but we rode on some beautiful winding mountain roads with some amazing views.

We visited a fantastic waterfall and also saw a buddist temple.

Need to shoot now and grab some dinner then meet up with everyone for drinks.

Stay tuned for more fantastic adventures....