Our return trip from Ko Samui to Bangkok was uneventful. We arrived at the Bangkok train station at 8am on Sunday, Sept 29 and immediately bought our train tickets for the Monday night. We had heard great things about Chiang Mai and were really excited to see a different Thai city as well as to do one of the famous jungle trips. We went to the travel agent in the train station and booked a 3 day, 2 night trek starting on the Tuesday. The rest of the day was spent in Bangkok. We bused it to Khao San Road, which is the backpackers haven in Bangkok. We booked a guest house, and spent the day walking the streets, eating and buying some clothes for our trek.

The next day we checked out of the guest house and decided to visit the teak museum which was the old palace of the king. It was really interesting. A guided tour showed us each of the rooms in the 3 storey house where the king and his family used to live before they moved to the Grand Palace. After the tour we headed to the train station and hopped on an overnight train to Chiang Mai.

Our train reached Chaing Mai on Tuesday morning. We were picked up at the train station by the trek company and brought to a guest house. After checking in, we did some exploring of the city and even broke down and had an American ice cream (we love you Baskin Robbins). Chiang Mai was a breath of fresh air (literally) compared to Bangkok. Even though it is the second largest city in Thailand with over 1.5 million people, it has a small town feel. The only issue we had was trying to figure out how to cross the street without getting run over, since stop signs and stop lights were practically non existent. Pedestrians simply walked across the street and it was up to the drivers to swerve around the people. At 6pm we met our guide, Jungle Sam, and 2 of the girls on our trip (Kam and Jaime from the UK). Sam prepped us on our trek and told us what to pack. Afterwards we went out to an Italian restaurant that Kam and Jamie had recommended and it turned out to be great.

The next morning started early. We brought our valuables and backpacks to the lobby where they were to be stored during our trek. All we took with us were a few clothes, water and our malaria pills. We even left our digital camera, since Dan was worried about damage. This meant that all of the best pictures of the trek would only be seen back home and not in this journal. We left the guesthouse and jumped onto a pick up truck and picked up the other 4 members of our trek. One couple was from the UK (Max and Tomo) while the other couple was from Italy (Raffaella & Ottman). We drove for 40 minutes outside of the city and stopped at a local market to buy some drinks and presumably for Sam to buy some food for our trip. Afterwards we stopped at a place by the road to go Elephant riding. It was a unique experience to be on this huge animal 12 feet off the ground. The Elephant went up and down these steep hills and crossed the deep river with complete ease.

Following the elephants two additional guides joined our team, Jungle Jim and Ding Dong. We then drove to the place where we begun the hike. The first hike was gruelling. We spent 3 hours hiking, of which most of it was uphill. We were panting and sweating like crazy, while our guides, who were doing the hike in flip flops, moved without breaking a sweat. We hiked over fences, through rice paddies, crossed rivers, and balanced across flimsy bridges. The guides kept saying "Oh my buddha" instead of "of my god" and by the end of the trip, we were all saying it. Eventually we took a short break by a waterfall to eat lunch (fried rice) and to let our muscles relax.

We arrived at our destination by 5pm. Our first night was to be spent in a Karen village, which is one of 10 hill tribes in Thailand. Our guide Jungle Sam was the chief of this village. The village was very basic and clearly showed how poor they really were. There was no electricity and most of the villagers had never been to a major city. The 76 people that lived here lived in bamboo houses built on stilts. Livestock was everywhere as each family had their own collection of roosters, pigs and chickens. The village also had a number of dogs whose main purpose was to warn the villagers when poisonous snakes came around. A large hut was built especially for the tour groups, which was actually pretty nice. We were given a sleeping bag and pillow and tried to make the floor look as comfortable as possible. After changing into some dry clothes, we walked around the village. Dan played ball with the village kids who were extremely friendly. That night Sam cooked a great traditional meal of chicken, potatos and rice and we eat heartily. Afterwards we sat on the porch of our hut, talking with our guides and drinkging Thai whiskey (a foul homemade drink made from rice that resembled moonshine) and beer.

The next day we woke up bright and early to the calls of the rooster. It didn't bother us to get up early, since most of us had a hard time getting comfortable on the wooden floor. Of course Tomo's loud snorring didn't help. After breakfast Raffaella and Ottman, accompanied by Ding Dong said goodbye and returned to the city. They had only come for one night. The remaining 6 of us packed our things and waited for Sam, who had a few things to do. During our wait we went to see the school, where we saw 20 kids aged 1-6 running around. The school was pretty new and was the only school for children this age within the nearby Karen villages. Sam explained to us that he was trying to build a secondary school as soon as he could get enough money (about $1600 Cdn).

We started our hike at 10:30 AM and were assured that today would be easier. Our legs and back ached from the previous day, whch made us get off to a slow start. About 20 minutes into the hike, it started to rain. We put on our rain ponchos shrugged our shoulders and kept going for about 2 hours. We stopped for lunch at a small hut that overlooked a rice patty and gave us some momentary shelter from the rain. Sam fed us some noodle soup in bowls that were made out of bamboo. We waited for the rain to subside and then continued on our hike. After another 2 hours, we ended up reaching our second destination, which was a jungle camp consisting of a large hut, a fire pit and a small waterfall. We removed our wet clothes and replaced them with the dry ones, which were basically the same clothes that we had warn on the previous day. We sat around the firepit and talked and relaxed. After a while Sam brought us dinner, which was an excellent chicken and eggplant curry with rice. We stayed around the fire that night with Sam, Jim and a few other people that had come down from the village. The Thai whiskey was passed around the group along with a few beers. After learning the body movements to a song about elephants, we dared Jim and a few others to go catch us some frogs to eat as a snack. They headed into the jungle anxious to proove themselves to us. Unfortunately they fell asleep out in the jungle from too much Thai whiskey.

We retired for the night into the hut and headed to bed. In the middle of the night Kam woke up screaming. Apparently she had felt something run across her arm. We were not sure if it was real or just a dream and there was nothing to be seen. So, we went back to bed and pulled the sleeping bag up tight around our shoulders. The next morning we got up, packed and ate breakfast. We were all a little tired (Kam had barely slept) but we were ready to push on. We hiked for a couple of hours until we reached a large waterfall. After a short break, we continued on our hike and passed an old man that was carving wooden toys and musical instruments out of teak wood. Jen and I bought a Thai guitar.

Eventually we made it to the end of the hike and wearily hopped onto a pick up truck. We stopped at a local restaurant for lunch and then continued on to do some bamboo rafting, which consists of tying 8 long bamboo sticks together and riding them down the river. A guide used a long bamboo stick to keep us away from rocks, while Dan stood at the back with a similar stick. Jen sat in the middle and tried not to fall off. Even though Dan had done some punting in Britain a month ago, Dan was completely useless at Bamboo rafting. Nevertheless, we had a great time. We eventually returned to Chiang Mai exhausted, but really happy that we had done the trek. A once in a lifetime experience!