Treking in Thailand

Well, we've totally gone off of the planned itinerary and ended up in Thailand! We were planning on being in Nepal or India around now but we couldn't get in from China. The India/China boarder is closed to travelers so the flights were super expensive...but the flights into Thailand were pretty cheap. So, here we are in Chiang Mai!

We are loving Thailand! The people here are really friendly and the landscape and food are fantastic. Our first day in Chiang Mai we checked out a couple of wats, rode in tuk tuks and looked at a couple of tours. We ended up booking a trek in the mountains to visit a hill tribe.

The trek ended up being really cool. Our group was pretty big but everyone was really nice. We were the only Americans- everyone else was European. We started the trek by cramming into a truck with our new friends for an hour or so and driving out to the trail head. Our trek was gorgeous and we were able to see a beautiful waterfall, amazing views and hike through rice paddies. Good thing we got those Japanese Encephalitis shots too as we ended up hiking through the dreaded combination of pigs, standing water and rice fields. Guess that was money well spent!

We spent the night at the hill tribe village and our guide managed to make us a really nice meal in a little hut with no electricity! We spent the evening around the fire in the middle of nowhere. One of the villagers joined us and although he didn't speak any English, he was proficient in magic tricks which he used to entertain everyone in exchange for beer.

We woke up early the next morning and hiked for another hour or so before coming to a gorgeous waterfall. It was one of the largest I've ever been in and you could even step behind the water so that you were in a cave of sorts. We could have easily spent all day there.

Our next stop was on a river where we 'rafted' on bamboo rafts. Our raft ended up breaking apart and Sean ended up in the river! We ended the day with a visit to an elephant camp where we were able to feed and ride on the elephants. Sean even got to ride on the elephant's head like a mahmout (elephant trainer)!