Trekking in the Chiang Mai Jungle

We woke at a pleasant 8:30, tried to stomach some of the already paid for 5* brekkie and jumped in the back of an old army truck with the rest of the people coming on the trek with us. Again the lack of safety precautions is fantastic! There were 11 of us on the trek in total as well as Lar our guide and his accumplice Day. Lar was an absolute legend but a compulsive liar telling us all about smoking crack on the trek and eating bamboo worms and wrestling crocodiles, man we were excited. Then there were a Polish couple and an Czech couple as well as the 3 girls I mentioned before who are from the midlands. The last 2 of the group were a pair of Aussie guys from Canberra, my god they were funny!! They had turned up drunk after the night before and told us allsorts of stories about the people they've met and the crazy things they've done. A particular favourite stories of mine was when some 'Bogans' (Aussie Chavs) were boarding a bus and the guy says to the woman, 'hurry up b*tch, or you won't get any heroin!', these guys were going to make this a unforgettable adventure.


We drove along ridiculously bumpy roads with nothing but metal spikes to protect our backs for about an hour before being faced with 4 or 5 elephants! Yes elephants! We bought bananas to feed them and got some unforgetable pictures! My word this is amazing!! Me and Adrian teamed up with Locky, one of the Aussie guys and mounted our elephant with me sitting on his head, mental! We persuaded the keeper to let us loose on our own and started on probably the most unforgettable journey ever! Our Elephant was called Bugall and he was boarder line retarded, but we love him anyway. He was super slow and always went the wrong way until we learned that to get his ass in gear we need to grunt and shout his name, huh huh huh huh Bugall!!, we also tried bribing him with bananas but he was having none of it! We got him up to some mad pace as well as have him shower us with his trunk and sneeze elephant snot on us! Best morning ever!

We got some lunch and headed up the mountain to start the trek. Trekking in the hills and jungle amongst the amazing scenery was epic and so different to the hustle of Bangkok, such a relief to be there and the company was amazing. We were convinced the trek would be fairly gentle, how wrong were we, it was epic! Trekking up steep inclines beside sheer drops, across narrow bamboo bridges! Amazing! We got to know our companions really well and made friends for life there, not least of all the tour guide Lar was a legend, made us walking sticks from bamboo and hid in the bushes in order to scare the crap out of us, which worked so well on me I nearly fell down a cliff to my doom, hero! We went to a waterfall in the middle of the jungle and Lar showed us how to jump in without get smashed into pieces on the rocks below. A few minor brushes with death and we were back to it. He took us across the border to Burma, no boarder control, no passports, no visas, eek! We then went to his families villages and enjoyed our first experience of beautiful, unspoilt by tourism, life in Thailand. We met his wife, a stunning thai lady, and his kid, it was emotional. We were served some traditional food and some rice wine moonshine!! Yes we got drunk again, didn't expected that but my god what a night, they had a guitar which I had to repair and then me and Caroline serenaded the group with classic songs while everyone got more and more battered on the wine, quality! I stayed up most of the night teaching one of our guides 'under the bridge' before attempting to catch an hours sleep before the trekking the next day. It was so cold! What the hell! After not sleeping at all dawn broke and we had breakfast before hitting the trails again, well I say 'trails' I mean walking through jungle, there were very few paths. We were given lunch wrapped in banana leaves and after seeing the town folk hammering down the rats I hoped it wasn't going to be rat surprise.

On the second day we trekked it good. Saw some amazing views and took some great photos. We stopped for lunch on the top of a peak and saw some stunning 360 degree views, thankfully lunch was noodles not rat! We continued to trekking down through the jungle amonst the wild flowers and the tropical trees. Lar was busy whittling chop sticks as we went and then embarked on the creation of a bamboo bong! Classic! We eventually made it to the location of our second nights sleep which was a pair of small shacks nexts to a picturesque river which we went swimming in again, it was ice cold and refreshing. We, in order to increase the depth of the pool, built a dam which was unbelievably effective and great fun. We then built an enormous camp fire and got back on the rice wine, crazy! They had a guitar as well which I had to repair again and then Remy the aussie astounded us all with the most amusing rapping to a 12 bar blues ever!! All I can say is, Pavarotti the universal dictator, backwards walking crab and tuk tuk wheely tuk tuk tuk tuk tuk tuk tuk tuk. After a few more drinks me and Remy wanted a bigger fire and so went into the firest in order to cut down trees with a huge knife. What were we thinking, I was hammered, bare feet and wheelleding a machetee, safe!! Totally satisfying though. After yet another feezing cold night we went for a morning dip and a wash in the river, as you do. We then trekked our way to the dock were the bamboo rafting was going to take place. Thankfully taking the advice of Lar and leaving everything in the truck we went rafting with nothing but boardies. Rafting was mental! This has to have been one of the most dangerous things I've ever done! We thought we'd be relaxingly floating down the river chilling in the sunny, but we were very very very wrong! We totally had to guide this 15 foot shed door through some mental whitewater, between huge rocks at speeds in excess of 30mph using nothing but a piece of bamboo and our weight to steer. We all took a total battering not to mention me getting catapulted over the front into a rock and nearly being decapatated in the most mental piece of the rapids. Mental!! That has to have been the best experience of my life. Unreal! What a way to end the most amazing 3 days of our lives!