It was with some trepidation that we set off on our 3 day hill tribe trek. We got such a cheap price (equivalent of less than USD $20 per day each including all accomodation, food, transport and activities) we wondered whether it might be a dodgy deal. It turned out superb! The first day of our trek we hiked about 8k in the hot steamy weather into the hills, and arrived at our village for the night in late afternoon. Our accomodation consisted of our own bamboo hut for the three of us, sleeping on bamboo platforms (I won't even get into the bedding, but it was a good thing we all brought a sleeping bag liner and sweater in lieu of a pillow). Our hosts, the long-necked people, who have made thailand their home after leaving Burma as refugees, have apparently found a much better life here, and are able to sustain their village life (no TV, no electricity, no running water except the river) with the help of tourism and selling handicrafts (Sarah and Caroline bought lovely bracelets). We opted to have a pig BBQ - which consisted of some serious hunks of pork on bamboo over a large fire - truly delicious!
The second day, we hiked about 10k down through lush scenery to our next village, where we arrived early afternoon. After a swim and hairwashing in the river to refresh ourselves, we settled into a relaxed afternoon of reading and playing cards. A curry dinner was followed by traditional dancing and music by the village folk.
The final day of our trip saw us hiking a short distance to the place where we did a charming elephant ride - it's a little scary when the elephant goes up and down steep banks as you are riding quite high, but other than that, it was great fun to feed him bananas and bamboo and enjoying the slow plodding pace. Next up as white water rafting, with much very little of the "white". As its the end of the dry season, the river was pretty low, and so not much adrenalin was firing up. That was followed by a gentle amble down the river on a bamboo raft. With our bad track record with rafting (remember the sunk raft in the Amazon in the piranha infested lake before Gary learned to swim?), we were glad to get back to dry land and the ride back to Chiang Mai.
