The amazing prepackaged hill tribe / trekking / rafting experience

It seems almost pathetic to bother writing about the other stuff we've done on this trip when compared to Elephant Nature Park, but indeed other stuff has occured and it is my journalistic responsibility to at least make some attempt to report on it. Therefore: In between the cooking course and the elephants I decided to take a two day trek into the forest. Apparently a completely cliche thing to do from Chiang Mai, but I'd been dying for a good long forest walk and poor Sarah was still getting over the horrendous ankle sprain she incurred in a Buddhist cave in Luang Prabang (Laos). She bade me a fond farewell of "Get the hell out of here so I can go shopping and do the cooking course again" and off I went.

Great hike which exceeded all expectations. They gave us a serious walk up a steep mountain to a Lahu hill-tribe village with an incredible view over the valley. It wasn't like the tribespeople hadn't seen tourists before (probably three or four groups a day for the last few years) but I wasn't expecting people to fall down in amazement at a whitey, and for a good trek and a night in a beautiful rustic village it was perfect.





Back down the next day we had a steep descent, swam around in a waterfall and then spent the next coupleof hours criss crossing over the river.



Then we came to an elephant trekking camp. This was before my Elephant Nature Park experience, but right away the place didn't look good. The mahouts were pulling elephants around with their big hooks, babies were following their working mothers around and many of the elephants seemed a little skinny or with scars and wounds on their heads and ears from the hooks. I opted out and snoozed on a bench while everyone else rode elephants. It poured rain for that hour, and that hour only, and they all got soaked to the skin. Instant karma?

Anyway then it was time for white water rafting, followed by floating the quieter part of the river on bamboo rafts. A pretty fun and action-packed couple of days really. We also met a couple of really nice English girls - Vicky and Abby - who are coming to Sydney to work for a year (good choice) and spent that night at the special Sunday night local market which was sensational. So many tasty little Thai treats!