Sorry for the lack of entries for the past days. Two days ago we embarked on a trek into the bamboo forests of Chiang Mai. We had signed up for a tour package (total ripoff, unfortunately!) that included accomodation, the trek itself, food, and transportation to and from. It ended up that we could have booked it all ourselves for half the price!

We started off in the back of a truck that got sloshed to bits (still Songkran - the splashing festival). We all got totally wet several times over. The truck stopped at several key points so we could spend money (a theme that became too obvious early on in the trek) and got us to our first activity in about 2 hours.

The bamboo raft part of the trip was pretty cool, but our captain was a drunk maniac (he at one point called himself “mr. professional” - it must have been opposite day) and the Songkran festival brought everyone in the vicinity to the water’s edge to drench the tourists on display floating down the river. I started out with a good attitude, but that turned sour for a while when I fell off the back of the raft (I had been rowing in the rear) and hit my knee kind of hard on the rocky riverbed, then got a loose contact lens from all the water being thrown at me, and realized just how drunk “mr.professional” was.

After a soggy lunchtime we started on our way to a waterfall. This first part of the trek went fine and the waterfall was really beautiful. We got to cool down with a swim in the river, so that was a high point for sure.

The next part of the trek was uphill for about another hour, which was fine, and then we arrived at the hut that would be our home overnight. Things got a little awkward when some of the “locals” (I’m not sure how authentic this whole deal was) came out with baskets full of touristy gifts for us to buy. I didn’t really want anything that they were selling, but I felt really guilty when one of them told us that he had spent 5 days weaving a handbag that he then shoved at me and said “please, lady, you buy?” I mananged to turn him down (yikes!!) and then an old man came out with some bracelets and the offer of a weird “good luck blessing.” I think it was probably a load of s**t, but I kept my mouth shut.

We met a lot of really nice people on the trek; that was a high point of the experience. After dinner, we whiled away our time posing stupid “mind puzzles” to each other. Take this for example: “two men go into a bar. They’re exactly the same in every way and even order the same drink. The bartender poisons both drinks. One man drinks his drink and is fine, but the other waits 10 minutes and dies. How?” I’ll post the answer later…

We slept on crappy, thin mattresses covered in mosquito nets. The bathroom was basically a hole in the ground without the bottom cleaning spray gun I’ve begun to love, and in the middle of the night, I could’nt get up the nerve to go all the way there in the dark, so I peed in the bushes and covered it up like a cat. I slept okay after that, but I woke up a bit sore and headachey. Breakfast was very toast heavy - four pieces per person with a pile of extra, and we all ate up before trekking back the way we came.

The elephant ride at the end of the trek was really great. Definitely my favorite part. Since there was an odd number of people to fill up the saddles, I got to ride on the elephant’s neck!! It was great fun even with all the trunk spray that was lovingly sent our way.

Tomorrow: off to Phuket!!