The trek:
Day 1: Thirteen lucky contestants crammed into the back of a pick-up-cum-taxi and headed north. With a brief stop at the local market to buy supplies, we drove for three hours to our destination in the middle of nowhere…apparently. Despite the assurances that we would “be alone in the jungle” we where followed by at least two other tour operators transporting the same foreign cattle to the hills. Our guide, aptly named Johnnie Walker, shuttled us from the back of the taxi onto the back of a rather imposing elephant.
What a beast!
Our new friend took a casual stroll up the hillside with us sitting proud on his back. When the track got a little tricky, we disembarked and marched behind them to the river banks. Taking a zip-line over the river we sat for lunch and readied ourselves for the first walk of the trek. Three hours of uphill walking in the stifling heat wasn’t as unpleasant as it sounds. Particularly when its conclusion finds you atop a huge hill with the most spectacular views. Without hot water, or electricity for that matter, we settled down for a night of drinking (naturally), card games and a full-body massage from 80 year old tribes-women. Not bad for a days work.
Day 2: Amazingly Johnnie awoke before us shaking off his moonshine and opium induced coma from the night before. Bringing with him Bo, the talented guitarist who’d provided a tune or two the previous night, Johnnie set us on track for some more sluggish uphill struggling. Fortunately, after only an hour or so we came across the first waterfall offered as part of the trekking experience.
In a word; cold.
One very, very cold shower later we had a bite to eat and dried off in the warm sun. By this point we were heading downhill and things felt cooler in the shade, making the walking more pleasurable. Within an hour we had reached the second, smaller waterfall of the trek. Only three brave souls had the stones to go into this bad-boy, and I’m glad to say that Andy and I were two of said souls with said stones. Literally turning the corner we arrived at our camp for the night. This time around the group had got to know each other pretty well and the beer consumption was met with more witty banter than the night before. Once again Bo had found a guitar, which I toyed with for a wee while, and gave us countless renditions of Hotel California, something of a Thai favourite, the poor buggers. The two women in the camp spoke barely a word of English but they sat around the fire with the whole group showing us magic tricks with pieces of string and beer cans. These two ol’ gals are awesome. They didn’t stop laughing the whole night. It’s true that Thailand is the land of smiles.
Day 3: Starting out around 11:00, we had a forty minute walk going downhill again to the river returning to the place we’d eaten lunch two days before. We dumped our bags in the back of the pickup and prepared ourselves for the whitewater rafting. Helmet, check. Paddle, check. Hopelessly inadequate training, check. We got 10 minutes of instruction, but we weren’t really paying attention. Sod it anyway, we just wanted to ramp a big boat down a big river. And we did. It was great fun. We stayed afloat, and no harm came to anyone. We jumped out the boat (or is that raft, I don’t know) and onto a bamboo raft. With five of the heaviest guys on board we floated, half submerged in the ice cold water for the next 30 minutes enjoying the view and trying not to worry where our genitals had disappeared to. A spot of lunch was had, and we piled back into the pickup and returned home. A great trip.
