Oh my Buddha! (Chiang Mai / Jungle Trekking Adventure)

Holy Shit! Was this REALLY my life for the past 3 days? This is what I am thinking as I sit here. Totally surreal. Entirely.
We arrived in Chiang Mai on Sunday morning, at least I think that's when it was. (something about not having a watch, not knowing what day it is, or what time it is, and not actually needing to know for that matter, is pretty incredible-until you actually have to be someplace at a specific time). We took a night train from Bangkok, where we had been for one night to regroup, rest, and do laundry. Our night train was set up a little different this time, and we had a couple of neighbors with whom we briefly made small talk with before our journey began.

Chumpon Train Station, waiting for our train

Our car, with nice big windows from which I was able to smile and wave at the children passing on the highway in cars

 We arrived in Chiang Mai, and checked in and had a look around. We ate breakfast, and visited the Sunday market, and also had a dip in the neighboring hotel pool, which is owned by our hotel, so we can visit it anytime. Our room here, with two twin beds, and a fan, costs 200 Baht per night, which is equivalent to less than 7 dollars U.S., shared between two people is around 3.50 each night for a nice, warm, clean and DRY place to stay.. Which is golden, especially after the journey I have just been on! But, more on that later. Now, for your viewing pleasure, Chiang Mai.

This Wat is right near our hotel, and we pass by it every day. It is lovely.

We began our trekking Monday morning, which began with a car coming to pick us up at our hotel. It was more like a glorified pick-up truck, which was equipped with bench seating in the bed of the truck, covered, with some windows. This is the standard method of transportation for trekking adventures. We met up with 5 other people, so now we were 7 and began the epic journey of our lives. We stopped first at the usual spots for anything relating to a day trip in Thailand - Snake farm, Orchid Farm, and also a pretty interesting place called the "long neck village". In case you are a fan of National Geographic, you have seen these women before. They start at a young age and wear brass rings around their necks, thus increasing the lengths of their necks. I am not really certain why it is that they do this, but it is amazing to see in person. Some of them also have big stretched earlobes, which I liked. They are originally from Burma, which borders Thailand, or they have come from near the Thailand/Burma border. The "village" they took us to was more of a tourist attraction than anything else; especially evident when I saw the satellite dish they had in the banana patch.

They have faker rings for the tourists to wear and act cute. It's really fun, but silly.

After we left the long necks, we headed for our actual destination, with our guide already by our side. We stopped at a small home for lunch with another group of trekkers, but then separated, and we were on our way. The trek up the mountain was HARD! I am not going to lie, it was really hard on me, and I didn't really enjoy it. As usual with hiking, I like to take my time, and go slowly. This meant that out of the 7 people in our group, I was the last one of the pack, far behind all others, but with the guide by my side the entire time, as he was also a little slow on foot. He reassured me, and allowed me to take my time and enjoy the actual hike, instead of just over exerting myself, which I appreciated. The "hike" (parenthesis because it was mostly on a semi-paved roughed up road nearly all the way up), was long, hot, and STEEP! I had to stop frequently to catch my breath, and our entire team was SOAKED with sweat from head to toe by the time we arrived at the hillside village. 

Yep, I was really really exhausted. I will say how amazing it was though that we were at the top of the mountain

Entrance to their village

We arrived at the hilltribe village, and were greeted with stares, but also, two little naked kids that were playing in their version of a kiddie pool. The little girls were waving and blowing kisses at us as we entered. We walked up to our residence for the next night, and started to get settled in.
Our guide, Wii-- I have no idea how the hell to spell his name, but that is my attempt; brought us into the main house in the village. He seemed like the main guy in the village with whom everyone was associated, and upon whom everyone relies. This information is important for later on in the story, so keep hold of that one.
Wii had 4 or 5 children around him. He said that they are all orphaned kids of the village, whos parents for various reasons, were dead. At least, this is what he told us. One of the kids running around was his son from the wife that had just passed away. He spoke a few words of English , and a few phrases in Thai. We sat around, talked, walked a little around the village, and started to settle in for dinner. The kids all came in to join us, and Ryan and I brought out our cameras, which the kids were really interested in, so we let them take pictures of us, and they had a super blast of a time!

They all posed this way as soon as a camera was on them, so cute. They then, looked at the photos they took and laughed and laughed. Wii says that they never stop, and they played under the house all afternoon, and even into the evening.

 

 

 

After we played, and ate dinner, and played funny games with Wii with sticks, which were really more like riddles, we prepared to settle in for the night, and begin another long trek, this time down the mountain, to the waterfall and beyond!

Our FUN group left to right: Alessio, Robin, Wii behind Ryan, Dave, J.P. and Steffi

 I made sure to stop from time to time going down the trail and take photos so I could remember it all

After a couple of hours hiking down the trail, we ended up at an amazing waterfall, where we could swim and play and then eat lunch!

Our private lunch shack, which you had to cross the river to get to. We ate and played a game or two, and then headed on down the trail

After our delicious noodle soup lunch, we played some games with sticks and laughed and talked and then headed down stream toward the Elephant camp. This is where things started to get interesting. I will admit that I am a somewhat clumsy person. I do tend to get injured, not seriously, more often than I would like. In this particular instance, it was my ankle, yet again. I have sprained my ankles many times, and usually, it isn't serious, and I can quickly bounce back from them. Not today.
As I headed down the trail, I think I lost my concentration on what I was doing for a split second, and that was all it took. I sprained my ankle on a totally flat part of the trail, in the front of the line, and I fell down like a jerk. I could hear the thing pop, like the normal sound of a joint that is being stretched or cracked, but it wasn't so bad. I had to continue down the trail, and I was grateful that this didn't happen before, otherwise, I would really be fucked.
I also saw a small snake cross the trail in front of me, which was pretty cool, considering that this is not something that ever happens in Hawaii.
Now this is where things get REALLY interesting/scary as hell!

The last moment of happiness before the shit storm

 Attention Dad: please do not have a heart attack while reading this part, I am alive, and I am fine.


After we exited the main trail through the mountainous jungle, it took us onto a paved road. In our group we had two guides. Wii, and one other of the villagers. The two trekking groups merged in to one, and there were 7 of us, plus two guides. Since I am usually slow, I am always at the back. Ryan was with me, because he was being really nice and staying with my injured self, and Wii, our original guide was with us as well. The others were now ahead of us, with the second guide. We couldn't see them down the road. We passed one concession shack, and started to approach a small shack on the side of the road. The man inside the shack came out and started to exchange words in Thai with Wii, our guide. The next thing I know there is a struggle, and Wii is pulling out his machete at the man and they started to struggle some more. The man, dressed in what resembled a military uniform of sorts, pulled Wii's bag off of him, and I immediately thought we were being robbed/kidnapped, something awful. Wii and the man struggled, but then Wii started to yell for us to help him. Ryan actually stepped in and tried to pull Wii from the clutches of the man in black, but was not successful. The next thing I saw was handcuffs being placed on Wii. The look on Ryan's face was enough to send fear deep in to my heart. I was standing pretty far back, thinking to myself what the FUCK is happening, and what the FUCK am I going to do; I am in a foreign country, in the middle of the jungle, I don't speak Thai, I have a sprained ankle, and no machete. The next thing I know a truck comes barreling down the road, kind of out of nowhere and I flag it down for some help, not knowing who the fuck is inside. At that point I figured it was better than not having any help, so fuck it, let's get more bodies around. Three other men jump out of the truck and go over to Wii, with handcuffs, and struggle with him too. They started to kick him, and they had him in their grasp. I was TRIPPING BALLS! I was telling Ryan the whole time that we need to get the fuck out of there. The men actually asked us if we were okay, and they told us they were police but not in uniform, and that we should just leave. It seemed really strange to us later that there was a truck that just showed up at that exact moment. Perhaps they had radios, and were communicating. I didn't know what the fuck to think. I told Ryan let's go, and so we began to run. Ryan actually was really nice about it. He said, "I'm sorry, I know your ankle is hurting you, but maybe we should pick up the pace". I, on the other hand, would have been like "bitch, you need to move your ass"!!!!! So, we ran, and made sure we weren't being followed, and I thought I was going to have to hide in the bushes, facing possible cobras, just to survive. This was SCARY. We ran and ran, until we could see our other group, who by that time had reached the elephant camp. We told the other guides what happen, and our group members, and then thought about what to do next. The other guides didn't really seem too worried about it at all. That was disconcerting also. I wanted to go back to Chiang Mai, so much. I was injured, scared, confused, and I now felt completely unsafe. After a while, we actually did try to get the man at the camp (who we all came to loathe, because he was a drunken fool) to get someone to take us back, at least me and Ryan. He explained that there wasn't anyone to take us, and it would cost us a bunch of money to go back. In the end, we decided to just stick it out. It was really scary not knowing what had just happened, or why, and now wondering who was going to be coming to the camp to pay us a visit. We were all pretty nervous by now.

We ended up making the best of it with the group, and the many young men in it offered their protection to Steffi and me, which was really nice. I felt a lot better after some food, and some drinking! We stayed up playing fun drinking games, and being silly, and getting to know each other a lot better. The craziness that Ryan and I experienced could only be conveyed in words to the others, but it bonded us all closer together as we tried to pick apart the whole situation. In the end, I think that the whole crazy experience was due to Opium. Wii talked a lot about Opium, and I think that he sells it. I don't personally care whether or not he does illegal activity, after all, he has an entire village to support. The village shares all of the money that they get from doing this trekking adventure, and they are all one family. I guess though, that Opium is a huge deal to the Thai government, and it's not tolerated; well, obviously. We found out later that Wii has had this happen before, but he doesn't learn. Again, I don't care what he does on his own, and I never felt unsafe with him, or in danger by him, not once. It was just really unfortunate that he was involved in something that has now removed him from his day job, and his village, and all of the children who rely on him; not to mention he was really a nice and really funny guy.


After a nights sleep next to the raging river, there was a lot of anticipation of what the day would bring next. I had to think about whether or not I would participate in the next adventures, because of my sprain. I chose to just handle, and do all the activities; after all, I had paid for them, and these were things you may only do once in your life..


The first adventure of the day, Elephant ride!!

They brought the elephants in, one by one, until there were 6! It was pretty surreal to be eating breakfast one minute, and see the elephants walking in the next.

Steffi and me. We were screaming and laughing. It was pretty intense at first.. you think "oh my god, I am riding on an elephant"!

The first bit of the ride was up a scary, muddy, steep trail. It was a roller coaster on four legs!

During the ride, the elephant "driver" was sitting atop the elephant's head, guiding it, and talking to it, and prodding it along with the stick. We purchased a bunch of bananas, and we used them in a similar way to using tokens to go on a ride, sort of. When the elephant trainer got off the elephant, the elephant would reach its truck up over the back of its head, basically asking you for a banana. It was as though the elephant was saying "no money, no honey", and it wouldn't walk until you fed it!

They like food

At one point in our ride, our elephant trainer and all the other trainers got really excited about something, and our trainer jumped off the elephant and ran up into the trees on the hill, with his sling shot out. AAALLL the guides, hilltribe men, and trainers have sling shots. This particular day, they were after some small bird. So, there Steffi and me were, on a fucking elephant for the first time, withOUT a trainer. By this point we had also run out of bananas. Our elephant started to reach up for some snacks, and we had nothing! The elephant let out a big breath that smelled of bananas, and seemed displeased. It then started to walk away on its own!! Needless to say this scared the hell out of us, and we started to yell to our trainer to come back down, but all he would do was look, and laugh. Eventually the asshole came back out of the bushes, with no kill, and we were on our way. The trainer offered Steffi to get up on the elephant head to ride, SO COOL! We got back to camp, rested for a bit, packed our things up, and then it was time for river rafting! By this time, it was a running joke that all of the guides that I get partnered with, get arrested, or run off, so no one wanted to be in the boat with me. (Just jokingly). It was so funny. I decided to just handle again, and go river rafting, and boy am I glad I did!!

While this isn't my team, I will have more photos up on Facebook later. Someone in my group had a waterproof camera, and it was so fun to take photos of our raft adventure.

After white water rafting, which lasted for a good long time, we did a bamboo raft the rest of the way down the river to our last stop of the trekk for lunch, and some awesome photos that they took of us as we went down the river. They put them in really cool photo frames, which said "Chiang Mai" on them, with some elephants and sold them to us for 5 dollars.
After the day was done , we boarded a really nice bus and headed back to Chiang Mai. We all agreed to meet up for dinner later, and then headed back to our guest houses.
We got together again for dinner, and some really good laughing (drinking, games, etc., of course) and had one last super fun filled night with these amazing people.
This adventure was by far one of the best I have ever been on so far in my life. A million emotions, memories, experiences, and laughs. Amazing.
Until my next post - may be some time, as I need to rest up before another adventure; take care!
xoxo

Just dive it! (Koh Tao)

Hi All! It's been a while since I have been able to post, or spend any time on the computer.

We left our hostel on Friday evening and headed up to Kho San Road to spend some time before our bus departed. 

After spending nearly 10 hours on a "VIP" double decker bus, we then boarded a high speed catamaran, and set off for Koh Tao.
We arrived in Koh Tao last week Saturday to do part one of our dive/trekking package. Koh Tao is down south on the peninsula, off shore a ways and it is one of the smaller islands here. It is known for its diving, and it is THE place to go diving. My friend Ryan and I were both "open water" scuba certified before arriving here, and so we came with the intention of doing our "advanced open water" certification. Advanced certification entails doing 1. a dive up to 30 meters (98 feet!) 2. a night dive (scary!) and then 3 other dives including a navigation dive, a naturalist dive (identifying different creatures) and a buoyancy performance dive (which I needed very much!). We got settled in Saturday, and started our diving on Sunday morning. When you go out diving here, everyone/all different levels go out together on the same boat and you do two dives, at two different dive sites. The first dive was our "deep" dive. 100 feet, that's right! It was AMAZING! We got down to 30 meters and started swimming around. We saw a giant grouper and a million billion other fish, including barracuda, angel fish, all kinds of corals and invertebrates, and so so many things that I cannot even remember. The deep dive was one of my favorites. The diving is incredible here!

We completed 5 dives over the course of two days. I loved the entire process of diving, from descending the line, to coming up the line, passing your fins up to the boat, and getting out of the water. I am deeply considering continuing my dive training.
In addition to diving, Koh Tao was a lot of fun, and a terrific change away from Bangkok. We rode all over the island on mopeds and had a terrific time all around. 

 This was the view off of our second bungalow. It was so quiet and peaceful, you felt so happy to just enjoy the atmosphere.

This photo was at our new favorite place, Bubaloo's, which let you just relax, day or night, and view the stars, or the many fire dances they have going on each evening.
For our last day on Koh Tao, we took a snorkeling tour around the island, stopping at various locations for some time to snorkel. My favorite was "Shark Bay", where I had the pleasure of seeing a black tip reef shark swimming under us! It was actually not scary at all, like I might have imagined it to be. One thing in particular that has completely dissolved since I began scuba diving is my fear of the ocean, its depths, and its inhabitants. Sure, some of them can kill you, but diving has given me a bigger respect and appreciation for all things aquatic! 

After reluctantly leaving Koh Tao, we boarded another ferry boat and headed back toward the main island, then preparing to board a sleeper train for the long haul back to Bangkok.

 Here you see my tiny sleeper tomb, which allowed me a real night of sleep on a transportation vehicle! Much better than the VIP bus, no thank you, not for 10-12 hours!


We arrived in Bangkok this morning and are now back at Lub d hostel, doing errands and well, cutting hair again! It is becoming a tradition to give me a haircut each time we come to Bangkok. Luckily, we will be gone for a little while, or I may end up bald soon!

So, now that I have sort of reconnected with my blogging, and have for the most part caught up with it, I will head out to Chiang Mai tomorrow night on yet another sleeper train. In Chiang Mai, we will go up to Pai, and go trekking in the jungle, bamboo river raft riding, white water rafting, elephant riding, and who knows what else! We will stay in Chiang Mai a while and then head over to Laos most likely, for a border run, and also to continue on our journey. 
Until my next post!
xoxo