Best Day Ever Part I

We got up early yesterday (saturday) morning to have breakfast and get ready to go by 8 when our guide was set to puck us up for our trek into the mountains surrounding Chiang Mai. Our guide's name was Sanghay Darling, Hay Darling for short-seriously:) it was great! Allie has had him for a guide every year for the last 6 years. And it is so clear why, he is such an amazing person. I've never seen a bigger or more sincere smile on anyone's face in my entire life. The energy he exudes is so wonderful and his enjoyment and love of Thailand is contagious. Our driver for the day was called Mr. Buddha. He didn't speak much English, but he definitely got us where we were going in a jiffy...kind of wish I hadn't sat in the back of the van.

We arrived in a small village of one of the many (12-15 maybe?) hill tribes of Thailand called Chiang Doi. There weren't many people out--probably because it was early on a Saturday. There were a lot of pigs and chickens running around and many traditional tribal houses. And in among these structures was a very, very large satelite dish. So odd to see the oddly mismatched structures existing together amongst people you would never guess have even heard of television much less watch it. But there you go.

We passed through the first village and on passed their farm-consisting mostly of corn oddly enough. As we walked by some of the men loading bags of corn onto the truck stopped to look at us and gave a us a couple of ears of corn to eat. I wasn't aware that you can really eat corn raw but I gave it a whirl and it was so sweet and delicious. I was completely surprised. I didn't eat more than a bite though because it's so easy to get sick out here eating too much raw food--anything exposed to the water out here is suspect. But a bite here and there is all right.

We continued on into the mountains and along the muddiest, slipperiest path ever. It's teh end of the rainy season out here so it still rains about once a day for an hour or two. By the end of the trek my legs were covered in mud up to my knees...I loved it! I had forgotten how much fun I had as a kid playing in the mud and the rain. At one point we had to walk across/in a river which made me a little nervous because I definitely couldn't see what was beneath the surface. But we all made it rhough unscathed.

We then passed through another hill tribe village, also equipped with a satelite dish. Continuing on our hike, we climbed almost straight up through a corn field. It was so strange passing from jungle to corn field in a matter of minutes, but as a lot of hill tribes are moving from subsitence agriculture to commercial farming I'm sure there will be more corn fields popping up. I should also mention that at any moment I could stop and look back where we came from and see giant, green mountains peaking out from behind the low, fog like clouds. I could also see the rice paddies at the foot hills. It was absolutely breath taking. We also saw a lot of flowers and some crazy bugs. I was just glad that no snakes came out. Had it been dryer that could have been an issue, eeeee.

We came to our last stop on the hike in the village of the elephant hill tribe. Here is where we sat down to eat an amazing meal prepare for us by the tribe witht he vegetables Sanghay bought at a market we stopped at on our way out of town. It was so delicious! We had rice, sweet and sour vegetables, veggie stir fry, chicken, fresh pineapple (!) and a fruit native to Thailand called rambutan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambutan). It has the consistancy of a pear and the flavor of a very sweet kiwi. mmmmmm.

After we ate lunch and did some bartering with the women of the tribe we began the second part of our trek-the elephant ride! There were 2 of us to an elephant and one guide who sat on the neck of the elephant just behind its ears. I shared my elephant ride with Olivia and we had a great time. Our elephant's name was Do and I'm fairly certain he was hungriest elephant of the 4. At one point he went of the trail, wrapped his trunk around bamboo that was about 20 feet high with a diameter of about 5 or 6 inches, and snapped it in half like a twig. It was so cool!

We road on the elephants for about a half an hour or so. Once I understood the rhythm of the elephant's walk it was easy to sit back and relax and just take it all in. We were met at the end by Sanghay and Mr. Buddha who were ready to take us to the last part of our journey...bamboo raft down a river I can't remember the name of right now (the loanguage out here is beautiful but not easy to remember because it is so different).

Avery, Gina and Olivia started off on the first raft and left us all in the dust in a matter of moments. Allie, Michaela and I shared the second and Ario oand Todd were on the third. The last 2 rafts spent the rest of the time on the river floating together. The guides in both rafts let us try poling/steering. I was actually pretty good at it and started to feel comfortable until I almost lost the pole. I decided to leave it to the experts:) Right about then the guides and Todd dcided it was about time for a rowdy water fight/raft war. It was so much fun! The raft guides were absolutely relentless, but then so were the rest of us. At the end of the day I was completely drenched...which felt so great because it was so hot.

I'm going to leave the evening portion for later. It includes Thai moonshine and Thai reggae. I'm going to go nap now before we head up to the temple on the mountainm Doi Sutep. Like I said, Part II includes moonshine and reggae:)

Sawat dee ka
Andrea