Hello again family and friends! This is the site for my new travel blog that will follow my travels through Thailand. This time I will be accompanied by my good friend, Brent Whitley. We will be traveling for 15 days. I will try to update this site as much as I can throughout the trip. Happy New Year everybody and see you when I return!
-Alec
January 21, 2010
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The Jungle Trek
January 21, 2010
Day 10
We are out of the jungle and back in civilization. Most of what we saw and did during the trek was indescribable. It was definitely the highlight of the trip so far.
The trek lasted 3 days/2 nights. Our trek guide was Ping Phong. He picked us up from our hostel early that morning and took us into Huai Nam Dang national park where we began the trek.
Our first stop was the Maw Paeng waterfall. It was only the three of us in the group. Me, Brent, and Ping Phong. After the waterfall we threw our packs on and began a rigorous incline up the hills. The first hilltribe that we would stay at was over the first major ridge. Ping Phong was a really nice guy. He made good coversation with us throughout the hiking. At one point he asked about some news he heard about an earthquake. I happened to have a special report issue of Time magazine on me that I picked up at the train station back in Bangkok. I showed it to him and explained where Haiti was in the world. He was surprisingly very interested. He asked if I would read the article to him slowly and I did. He couldn’t wait to reach the village so that he could have me share the Time magazine with them.
We reached the first hilltribe village. In front of it was large dried out rice fields. By summer they will be green and filled with water again, ready to have rice seeds planted in them. The villagers were very nice people. They made us the best tea and food. All of their vegetable and fruits were grown in the village, they made their own curry, and tea leaves. We had great meals while staying with the hilltribes.
The next day we hiked a lot. Ping Phong’s wife, Tana, came along with us on this day. We stopped at two different villages. The first one was for a lunch and rest break. The second was where we would sleep.
Early in the morning of our last day, Ping Phong took us into the hills where it was still wet and cold from the morning fog. After waiting a while we saw a couple of guys guiding an enormous elephant from the trees. It was huge. They strapped the bench ontop of it and we climbed up. We rode the elephant through the jungle on it’s back. It was a shaky ride and when going downhill you really had to hold on or else you’d roll off it’s back. We got back to the village Ping Phong and Tana led us to the river where the bamboo raft was waiting. They took all of our bags and shoes and tied them together near the head of the raft. Each of us had a bamboo stick in our hands and we all had to help steer the raft down the river pass. It took close to four hours to get through it. The sights we saw were incredible. We were like ants coasting in between the large, lush hills of the jungle on a bamboo raft.
After we reached our stop off the river, Ping Phong and Tana took us back to Chiang Mai. We were dirty. I had run out of clean clothes the day before and hadn’t showered since before the trek. When we got to our hostel we sent our clothes to the laundry and met up with Ping Phong and Tana for dinner later that night. We were pretty exhausted by the end of the night and crashed when we hit the bed.
Today we got our clean clothes back and were able to take showers. Later tonight we are going to see a Muay Thai match. Tomorrow morning we leave for Sukhothai, the ancient capital of Thailand.
