It's hard to believe that we're back already from our trek in the Thai rainforest. Before we left, we had our doubts as to what it would be like--would it be really cheesy? Set up for tourists? Really hard? Too easy? Um, let me clarify--really, REALLY hard. As in, I am surprised I survived. As in, I contemplated suicide more than once rather than continue climbing. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
So we left our house in Chiang Mai at 9:30am, and we were picked up by the trekking company in a truck, much like the "taxi" pick-up trucks here in the city. There were 13 trekkers plus 3 guides who squeezed into this truck. Space was pretty tight, and we all got hurried introductions over with. The truck drove us about 30 minutes north of the city to a Thai market where we picked up water and last minute supplies (think rain ponchos for our bags, and a couple snacks). It was a really cool market--there were all kinds of fruit, meat, and pastry vendors there, along with some drink vendors. It's still amazing to me how many different kinds of food they have, and it's all so colorful (though I don't touch the meat stuff with a 10-foot pole). I paid 2 baht to use the bathroom facilities, which were far below par, then we piled back into the truck to continue on to our final destination--the rainforest. None of us actually knew the name of the city we were going to until our guide told us later that night. I suppose they could have driven us out of the country and we wouldn't have known the difference, but a stop at the tourist police office a short while later quelled the fears of any who had considered this option. We turned in copies of our passports to the very friendly English-speaking officer, who drilled us on the emergency tourist police phone number (1-1-5-5), as if it would do us any good in the middle of the rain forest without cell phones or reception, but still, it felt good to know they at least knew we were going.
Our truck pulled up to the elephant camp 40 minutes later, and everyone got really excited. I mean, how could you not get super excited when a bunch of elephants are walking around and you're about to get on one of them? It would be impossible, I'm fairly sure. So we all climbed onto our elephants from a bamboo platform, and set off down a cliff to the river. It's really not very steady riding on an elephant. They sway from side to side quite a bit, and if it hadn't been for the bar on our little riding chair-thing, I would have slipped off 2 or 3 times. The "mahout" (elephant trainer) rides on the elephant's head to steer. We got down to the river and let our elephants mill around for 20 minutes or so--I'm not sure, it was so entertaining to watch them interact with each other and the baby elephant who was running around them, I think we all lost track of time. This baby was so cute. It wasn't tied to anyone, it just followed the whole herd as we went on our ride, each of them looking after it in turn. I guess it takes a herd of elephants to raise one baby. He was a little naughty, though--he just plopped down in the middle of the trail at one point. The elephant I was riding was a male and was called Boon-DI-ah. He was cool.
We got back to the elephant camp and found lunch waiting for us (rice with some tofu). It was pretty good but nothing too spectacular. No one cared. We were all excited and geared up for the trek looming ahead. We wanted to get going, we were dry, well-fed, and well-hydrated. Oh, how naive we were.
We set off from the elephant camp on foot, walking about a mile down a dirt road before veering off on the path that would take us to the foot of the mountain. I have to laugh now as I'm writing this, because we were so enthusiastic and utterly unaware of how difficult our hike was going to be. They told us it would be 3 hours. They also told us to bring 2 or 3 bottles of water. Well, I am pretty sure one guy brought 2, and the rest of us brought 1 each, thinking we'd A) be fine, or B) didn't want to have to pee before we made it to the village we were staying in for the night. The first hour of hiking was easy to moderate--it was hills interspersed with some stretches of flat path, and everyone was too high on adrenaline to notice the hills too much. Sweating, however, was inevitable, as the sun was high and hot, and soon our shirts were soaked through. The scenery was amazing, and just got more gorgeous the farther in we went. I had my camera in my hand and couldn't resist taking countless pictures on the way up the mountain (oh yes, we soon realized after that first hour that we were going up a mountain--a real one, not one of those sissy mountains).
We took a break at a small waterfall, and a few of the guys on the trip took advantage and jumped in. In hindsight, I realize now that they let us take such a long (20 minute) break at this waterfall because it was a turning piont of sorts before the trail got infinitely more difficult. I wish I had savored sitting and breathing more at that waterfall.
We resumed hiking. There was less chatter now, as the trail began to be steeper and with less even paths in between. Our guides seemed to think we had enough of a break at the waterfall, because by the time we next stopped, I was sweating even more profusely than before, was wheezing, and had pulled out my inhaler twice. My lungs felt like they had been punctured multiple times, and as bad as I was feeling, there was a whole half of our group that had fallen so far behind Marieka and me that we couldn't see or hear them anymore (they had a guide with them too). So I settled into what would be my place in line for the rest of the day--2nd slowest in the fast group. I thought it could have been worse. I was still going faster than 7 people total. At this point, I still cared about how I was doing, group-wise. So, so stupid. I should have spent that energy mentally forcing more oxygen into my lungs.
Mentally, I mark the turning point of our hike at what I suppose could correlate roughly to the "tree-line" on mountains at home, though there was technically still vegetation above this point here. We had rested momentarily at a point just before the forest opened up, and that is the point where the trek ceased being pleasant in any form or fashion. I had already hiked more than I ever have in my whole life. We had been at it for about 3 hours already, and gone roughly 8km, 6 of which were uphill. I had literally one swallow of water left, I felt as though I'd sweat out half of my body weight, and my lungs were on fire. I was doing the 'one foot at a time' mantra in my head, and I could see the group ahead, sitting on another fallen log. Haha--I said "ahead". I should have said "above". I saw the group above me. This part of the mountain was like climbing a very narrow, very steep set of stairs. The steps? Elephant footprints. How convenient. Perhaps there's an actual elephant nearby I could charter to the top? I got halfway up this monstrous climb and almost started crying at the impossibility of it. The girl in our group who was behind me was nowhere in sight. Everyone else in our group was watching my slow progress. Great. I audibly told myself not to cry. I trudged up the rest of the way. Made it.
Now, this log was in a position where we could only see one direction: the way we had come. Couldn't see ahead of us. After a fifteen-minute break, during which time the girl behind me made it up, we continued on. No sight nor sound from the second half of our group. They could have been eaten by pandas for all we knew. We rounded the corner behind the log and came into a clearing--our first sight of the village we were staying in! The end was in sight!
After seeing the village, I immediately began searching for our way up--THAT was the point I truly wanted someone to just kill me. Shoot me in the face, fml, leave me to die--whichever way you want, I really didn't care. I cannot even describe how totally and completely awful I felt--my whole body was in pain, and I had already pushed past my limits. What was directly in front of us was yet another steep climb, probably about another 400m high.
I can't go into detail about the rest of the climb, mostly because I was barely conscious for it. More than one person looked like they were going to cry. Notably absent from those going to cry were the mountain goats from New Zealand and Germany, Dave and Lasse. Those guys had clearly been eating their wheaties. Or they were on speed.
We made it to the Lahu village, and that was pretty cool--they live in bamboo huts on the edge of the summit of this mountain. There were dogs, pigs, chickens, and cows running around the village, and we stayed in a house belonging to a very entertaining man who has 3 wives.
Oh yeah--the village people are polygamists. Um, he also was singing and dancing to guitar playing that night while smoking opium. Yeah, it's illegal, but the hill tribes still do it, and he was offering these joints of opium around they modern-day peace pipes. We all cleaned up and about 40 minutes after we had arrived, the second group came trudging in, bearing my beaten roommate, Neha. This was Neha's first camping/hiking trip, and I actually think she did really well, tube-top, pink poncho and all. We had dinner all together on the floor of the hut, which was constructed of bamboo and covered with woven mats. The roof was thatch, and was tested for its waterproof-ness that night, because a huge thunderstorm moved in. We were so high up on the mountain that we were actually IN the thunderstorm. We could see the front moving toward us, and then the whole world disappeared as the cloud overtook us. It was awesome.
Not so awesome was that it continued to storm and monsoon all night and all morning, making today's trekking a bit difficult, as it was still raining on us while we came down the mountain. We set out this morning at 9:30 again, and hiked for a couple hours down the back of the mountain from where we had come up. Going down was definitely easier for me than going up, because it was very little cardio and a lot of strength training. It was interesting to see how the dynamics of the "fast" and "slow" groups changed with our change of direction. Maggie, Robbie, and I were numbers 1, 2, 3. Not that I noticed, or anything.
We stopped at a big waterfall, and this time I got in. We were all wet anyway, so it didn't matter and it was really fun. Another hour's hiking landed us at the jumping-off point for the whitewater rafting. That was really cool. I asked my boat's guide if I could sit in the front, and he wanted to make sure I wasn't a "lady-boy". That's what they call someone who's not very strong. I assured him I was up to the task, and I'm glad I did, because the front was awesome. We got bowled over by huge rapids about a dozen times. Our guide pronounced me "no lady-boy" at the end of the trip, so I guess I did okay. He also said the funniest things. When something unexpected would happen, he would go "Oh my Buddha!" He must have said it a couple dozen times--he was hilarious. He also "accidentally" splashed us with his paddle, tried to tip over our bamboo raft (we did that after), and then fell off of our bamboo raft himself.
We had lunch then and came home, again all crammed into a truck, and got rained on the whole way. All in all, though, it was an amazing and beautiful experience. Just a bit tiring.
So we left our house in Chiang Mai at 9:30am, and we were picked up by the trekking company in a truck, much like the "taxi" pick-up trucks here in the city. There were 13 trekkers plus 3 guides who squeezed into this truck. Space was pretty tight, and we all got hurried introductions over with. The truck drove us about 30 minutes north of the city to a Thai market where we picked up water and last minute supplies (think rain ponchos for our bags, and a couple snacks). It was a really cool market--there were all kinds of fruit, meat, and pastry vendors there, along with some drink vendors. It's still amazing to me how many different kinds of food they have, and it's all so colorful (though I don't touch the meat stuff with a 10-foot pole). I paid 2 baht to use the bathroom facilities, which were far below par, then we piled back into the truck to continue on to our final destination--the rainforest. None of us actually knew the name of the city we were going to until our guide told us later that night. I suppose they could have driven us out of the country and we wouldn't have known the difference, but a stop at the tourist police office a short while later quelled the fears of any who had considered this option. We turned in copies of our passports to the very friendly English-speaking officer, who drilled us on the emergency tourist police phone number (1-1-5-5), as if it would do us any good in the middle of the rain forest without cell phones or reception, but still, it felt good to know they at least knew we were going.
Our truck pulled up to the elephant camp 40 minutes later, and everyone got really excited. I mean, how could you not get super excited when a bunch of elephants are walking around and you're about to get on one of them? It would be impossible, I'm fairly sure. So we all climbed onto our elephants from a bamboo platform, and set off down a cliff to the river. It's really not very steady riding on an elephant. They sway from side to side quite a bit, and if it hadn't been for the bar on our little riding chair-thing, I would have slipped off 2 or 3 times. The "mahout" (elephant trainer) rides on the elephant's head to steer. We got down to the river and let our elephants mill around for 20 minutes or so--I'm not sure, it was so entertaining to watch them interact with each other and the baby elephant who was running around them, I think we all lost track of time. This baby was so cute. It wasn't tied to anyone, it just followed the whole herd as we went on our ride, each of them looking after it in turn. I guess it takes a herd of elephants to raise one baby. He was a little naughty, though--he just plopped down in the middle of the trail at one point. The elephant I was riding was a male and was called Boon-DI-ah. He was cool.
We got back to the elephant camp and found lunch waiting for us (rice with some tofu). It was pretty good but nothing too spectacular. No one cared. We were all excited and geared up for the trek looming ahead. We wanted to get going, we were dry, well-fed, and well-hydrated. Oh, how naive we were.
We set off from the elephant camp on foot, walking about a mile down a dirt road before veering off on the path that would take us to the foot of the mountain. I have to laugh now as I'm writing this, because we were so enthusiastic and utterly unaware of how difficult our hike was going to be. They told us it would be 3 hours. They also told us to bring 2 or 3 bottles of water. Well, I am pretty sure one guy brought 2, and the rest of us brought 1 each, thinking we'd A) be fine, or B) didn't want to have to pee before we made it to the village we were staying in for the night. The first hour of hiking was easy to moderate--it was hills interspersed with some stretches of flat path, and everyone was too high on adrenaline to notice the hills too much. Sweating, however, was inevitable, as the sun was high and hot, and soon our shirts were soaked through. The scenery was amazing, and just got more gorgeous the farther in we went. I had my camera in my hand and couldn't resist taking countless pictures on the way up the mountain (oh yes, we soon realized after that first hour that we were going up a mountain--a real one, not one of those sissy mountains).
We took a break at a small waterfall, and a few of the guys on the trip took advantage and jumped in. In hindsight, I realize now that they let us take such a long (20 minute) break at this waterfall because it was a turning piont of sorts before the trail got infinitely more difficult. I wish I had savored sitting and breathing more at that waterfall.
We resumed hiking. There was less chatter now, as the trail began to be steeper and with less even paths in between. Our guides seemed to think we had enough of a break at the waterfall, because by the time we next stopped, I was sweating even more profusely than before, was wheezing, and had pulled out my inhaler twice. My lungs felt like they had been punctured multiple times, and as bad as I was feeling, there was a whole half of our group that had fallen so far behind Marieka and me that we couldn't see or hear them anymore (they had a guide with them too). So I settled into what would be my place in line for the rest of the day--2nd slowest in the fast group. I thought it could have been worse. I was still going faster than 7 people total. At this point, I still cared about how I was doing, group-wise. So, so stupid. I should have spent that energy mentally forcing more oxygen into my lungs.
Mentally, I mark the turning point of our hike at what I suppose could correlate roughly to the "tree-line" on mountains at home, though there was technically still vegetation above this point here. We had rested momentarily at a point just before the forest opened up, and that is the point where the trek ceased being pleasant in any form or fashion. I had already hiked more than I ever have in my whole life. We had been at it for about 3 hours already, and gone roughly 8km, 6 of which were uphill. I had literally one swallow of water left, I felt as though I'd sweat out half of my body weight, and my lungs were on fire. I was doing the 'one foot at a time' mantra in my head, and I could see the group ahead, sitting on another fallen log. Haha--I said "ahead". I should have said "above". I saw the group above me. This part of the mountain was like climbing a very narrow, very steep set of stairs. The steps? Elephant footprints. How convenient. Perhaps there's an actual elephant nearby I could charter to the top? I got halfway up this monstrous climb and almost started crying at the impossibility of it. The girl in our group who was behind me was nowhere in sight. Everyone else in our group was watching my slow progress. Great. I audibly told myself not to cry. I trudged up the rest of the way. Made it.
Now, this log was in a position where we could only see one direction: the way we had come. Couldn't see ahead of us. After a fifteen-minute break, during which time the girl behind me made it up, we continued on. No sight nor sound from the second half of our group. They could have been eaten by pandas for all we knew. We rounded the corner behind the log and came into a clearing--our first sight of the village we were staying in! The end was in sight!
After seeing the village, I immediately began searching for our way up--THAT was the point I truly wanted someone to just kill me. Shoot me in the face, fml, leave me to die--whichever way you want, I really didn't care. I cannot even describe how totally and completely awful I felt--my whole body was in pain, and I had already pushed past my limits. What was directly in front of us was yet another steep climb, probably about another 400m high.
I can't go into detail about the rest of the climb, mostly because I was barely conscious for it. More than one person looked like they were going to cry. Notably absent from those going to cry were the mountain goats from New Zealand and Germany, Dave and Lasse. Those guys had clearly been eating their wheaties. Or they were on speed.
We made it to the Lahu village, and that was pretty cool--they live in bamboo huts on the edge of the summit of this mountain. There were dogs, pigs, chickens, and cows running around the village, and we stayed in a house belonging to a very entertaining man who has 3 wives.
Oh yeah--the village people are polygamists. Um, he also was singing and dancing to guitar playing that night while smoking opium. Yeah, it's illegal, but the hill tribes still do it, and he was offering these joints of opium around they modern-day peace pipes. We all cleaned up and about 40 minutes after we had arrived, the second group came trudging in, bearing my beaten roommate, Neha. This was Neha's first camping/hiking trip, and I actually think she did really well, tube-top, pink poncho and all. We had dinner all together on the floor of the hut, which was constructed of bamboo and covered with woven mats. The roof was thatch, and was tested for its waterproof-ness that night, because a huge thunderstorm moved in. We were so high up on the mountain that we were actually IN the thunderstorm. We could see the front moving toward us, and then the whole world disappeared as the cloud overtook us. It was awesome.Not so awesome was that it continued to storm and monsoon all night and all morning, making today's trekking a bit difficult, as it was still raining on us while we came down the mountain. We set out this morning at 9:30 again, and hiked for a couple hours down the back of the mountain from where we had come up. Going down was definitely easier for me than going up, because it was very little cardio and a lot of strength training. It was interesting to see how the dynamics of the "fast" and "slow" groups changed with our change of direction. Maggie, Robbie, and I were numbers 1, 2, 3. Not that I noticed, or anything.
We stopped at a big waterfall, and this time I got in. We were all wet anyway, so it didn't matter and it was really fun. Another hour's hiking landed us at the jumping-off point for the whitewater rafting. That was really cool. I asked my boat's guide if I could sit in the front, and he wanted to make sure I wasn't a "lady-boy". That's what they call someone who's not very strong. I assured him I was up to the task, and I'm glad I did, because the front was awesome. We got bowled over by huge rapids about a dozen times. Our guide pronounced me "no lady-boy" at the end of the trip, so I guess I did okay. He also said the funniest things. When something unexpected would happen, he would go "Oh my Buddha!" He must have said it a couple dozen times--he was hilarious. He also "accidentally" splashed us with his paddle, tried to tip over our bamboo raft (we did that after), and then fell off of our bamboo raft himself.
We had lunch then and came home, again all crammed into a truck, and got rained on the whole way. All in all, though, it was an amazing and beautiful experience. Just a bit tiring.
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