Trekking -- Thailand VI

There are plenty of reasons to come to Thailand: good food, nice people, bargain shopping. There are also elephant rides, bamboo rafting, and hill-tribe trekking for the more adventurous. Karen and I signed up for a one-day trek with the other residents of our guesthouse. We packed our backpacks and hopped in the back of the truck.

The first stop on our trek was elephant riding. We purchased a bag of bananas to feed the elephants. We hopped on our elephant precariously and took off into the jungle. Our elephant frequently stopped and reach his trunk over his head and onto us, telling us the he wanted a banana, and each time I would lean over and stick one in his trunk, getting elephant dirt snot all over my hand. All those bananas going to the elephant was starting to make me hungry and a little jealous. I bought those bananas, why should they all go to the elephant? So, I pulled one out for myself. One banana for the elephant, one banana for Susan.

After the exhausting elephant ride that took us through dense jungle vegetation and through a river, it was time for lunch. We drove over to a roofed outdoor space with two long wooden tables pushed together. Our tour guide then approached with plates of fried rice with egg. I sprinkled some of the red chili flakes on and scarfed that rice down. After our rice dish, plates of cut up watermelon and pineapple came out. I had only a few pieces of the sweet fruit fearing what might lots of fresh fruit in a foreign country might do to me and how many flies might have swarmed it before it reached our table. As we ate, we chatted with the British students, learned that they were childhood friends who now all studied at different universities but were taking a holiday together. I tried speaking Cantonese to the Malaysian group but then quickly reverted back to English. And, I didn’t even try to attempt French with the French couple and their young son.

After lunch we took a little hike through the rain to reach a waterfall, where we stripped down to our bathing suits and crossed the slippery, slimy rocks precariously to take a quick shower and dip. Then, it was to the river again for bamboo rafting. The Frenchman and the Indian British student fell overboard.

We were done. It was a long but fun day, and we were all exhausted. After a quick stop at the snack shack, we all piled back into the bed of the truck, I with wet shorts, and were on our way back to Chiang Mai, passing around bags of Lays potato chips of various flavors (Karen had purchased seaweed ones) to one another.