Day 10

Jungle Trek

Today has had alot going on so I'll try and keep it quick so I can sleep.

Woke up ate some nice breakfast and waited in our hostel lobby for our pickup around 8.30. We jumped into the mini van and headed to the last pickup and it was Sam staying at Mad Monkey which was pretty cool that we were in the same group all my chance.

We then headed as a group to a market to pickup any water or suncream drove a little bit further before we got out and the couple mini vans worth of people were sorted into their own groups. Soon we met Ron, our guide, and we were on our way into the jungle path. Ron is a legend and is a very sweet man who spoke decent English and has a great sense of humour.

On our walk in, it was so nice to be out of cities. It had been 9 grueling days of city air and I was relived to breath happy - not to mention the lack of noise except the sound of the flowing and the animals making whatever noises animals make? We passed elephants, buffalo, rice paddies, and plenty of bamboo trees which was so odd having only ever trekked in the UK.

Eventually we reach one of many White Karen Tribal Villages - being one of three types of Karen tribes these had single women wear white clothes and married women wear coloured clothes. They lived a very basic life in very small villages of less than 100 and it's quite a strange feeling being a nosy tourist poking my head around their town.

Next, we stop at a beautiful waterfall where we were able to jump in and swim about in the pool of water underneath. This is what I had been looking forward to for a long time and it was such a nice feeling to jump into fresh water again. We also had been prepared lunch which were wrapped in leaves and was a very nice tasting vegetable rice - and am very appreciative of whoever prepared it for us.

After getting trekking again we took more stops in Trival Villages and at waterfalls so with some more exploring and swimming we made it to our camp for the night, passing banana and jackfruit trees in the wild. How mad. We get to camp and it's definitely been built for tourists but it's fairly simple with some rooms with mattresses, a table, some toilets and even a shower which I was not expecting. After taking in the view on a bench with Alfie, Sam, a French girl and a Dutch girl (I don't remember their names!!) that we had met on our trek, I was feeling very much back in my zone. The gradual decline of chaos from Bangkok to Chiang Mai to the jungle was very relieving.

We drank Chang (a brand of beer) over a beautifully prepared dinner then sang Joyeur Anniversaire to a French dude named Mateo who turned 18 with his family in a Thai jungle. We then shared cake and sat found the campfire under the clear night sky chatting amongst eacother, before playing some card games. And with that it was time for bed on the floor under a bug net - which I think is pretty cool.Read more