In the jungle..

After a crazy day of running around Bangkok in a tuk-tuk, we took a sleeper train up north to Chiang Mai. They were a LOT more comfortable then the hard sleepers on the China trains. There are only two beds per berth, and in the morning you can fold th etop one up, and the bottom one into two comfortable seats. They do however leave the lights on all night, for safety, which makes it a little more difficult to sleep (my ability to sleep anywhere seems to be diminishing, gasp!!).

At the train station, we were whisked away to our GuestHouse (because we had arranged everything through TAT-the governmet tourist authority or something, which ended up costing more, ahhhh, but saved us some hassel of planning things!). After a nice swim in the pool, we hit up the night market. I wasn't really in the shopping mood, still upset about news from home...but still purchased a few things, all useless!

The next morning we had an early start to begin our 2 day jungle trek! First up, elephant riding!! It was great fun. We did a couple farly steap hills up and down where you would've fallen out of the seat if you didn't hold on to the one pole keeping you in there, with white kuckles! There were about 10 places along the way to buy bananas for the elephants...and they were certainly hungry. They pulled down huge tree branches for the leaves if you stopped feeding them the bananas. We also had a mom, so her little baby walked along beside us, super cute! But was a pushy eater, and got saliva all over me begging for more bananas. And at the end of the ride when I tried to keep some of the bananas for myself, the baby followed me around and kept wraping her trunk around my arm...little bugger!
After lunch we began the treck. It was up and down and hot and sticky..mmmm. When we finally arrived at the waterfall I jumped straight in, dirty clothes, muddy shoes and all!
That night we spent in a local village, lying on thin mats, under mossie nets in bamboo shelters! So we didn't get much sleep. Also, they have this crazy tradition called a 'black pancake party'. There is no eating of pancakes involved. But rather, they wipe the black soot off of the bottom of the cooking pans/woks and wipe it all ovr your faces. If you lose the game, or they just feel like it. It starts off with cool striped/dotted designs, but you end up covered! There were a couple American girls that were so black when they closed they're eyes and mouths you couldn't see them at all!! Not fun to wash off, but ridiculously fun to see.

Day 2 in the jungle was thankfully all downhill...and a bit cloudy. This hurt the knees, but was a nice break from the large uphills we covered the day before. After lunch was bamboo rafting. And as soon as we had all stepped on the 'leaky' raft, our 'driver' took off, throwing us onto our hands and knees. There would be no hope of staying dry. After a few bends in the river, lucky me who was sitting at the back of the raft, with the driver at the front, got swung around on a big turn...and headed for a large tree trunk over hanging into the river!! Thinking I was strong enough I layed on my back and stuck my legs out to push the raft away from the tree. But alas, I was no competition for the current and as the raft continued forward, my feet stuck on the tree, pulled themselves over my head and I flipped into the water!! AHhh, I was most worried about losing my sandles and sun glasses, but luckily came out alright...with a good laugh all around. I wish I had a video of my ridiculous stunt.

Enough trekking. We were going to go to the night market again that night...but instead hit the bed at 8pm, and did not move until the next morning!

More to come...
xoxoxoxoxox
Loves & misses to everyone.