Chiang Mai

After some sort of a sleepless nightmare of an overnight bus we arrived in Chiang Mai and managed to bag a hostel with a pool- to die for. Goes without saying that the next couple of days were spent lounging by said pool in preparation for the three days trekking we were about to embark upon.

So the trek begins- delighted to find our group were extremely fun, not so delighted when we started walking uphill! Couldn't believe how extremely out-doorsey we were being and how we embraced looking exceedingly rank- sweaty, ugly and boy-like. The first night was an initiation into "travelly wavelly-ness" as we sat around with our group, guides and thai village folk whilst singing along to a guitar.

Our trek group

The night got more random however when opium smoking and moonshine drinking was interspersed with random thai massages from the locals. At which point the night got even more random when the village children came to dance for us, although we suspect our rendition of the time-warp for them was even more special.

Being entertained by village children

The next day after having been promised a tropical waterfall we found ourselves not in a timotei advert but a pokey, murky pond where tay caused a scene when attacked by a leech (more likely a tadpole).

"Waterfall" on trek

The girls at Whitehaven Beach

Got to our camp for the second night, delighted to find it was a jurassic park esque jungle setting..... however things were not so rosy when we discovered in our sleeping hut an unwanted guest in the form of Mr Leeroy Gustafer Pickles, a spider the size of a baby's head. When the chief of the village was alerted of this peril, we felt sure comfort in his experience of evil jungle spiders and how to eliminate them. However in a Steve Irwin like manner he proceeded to simply poke the spider with a long stick thus only angering Leeroy and hiding him from our sight, the enemy was now at an unknown location. However we soon found our response to Leeroy was somewhat dramatic considering that the extras from "Arachnaphobia" had been re-housed in our camp post-filming.

Elephant riding on trek

Next morning elephant rides all round. Colly and Erin got the dud slow one and were no where to be seen for the duration. However Murph and Tay rode Edgar- apparently the world's most competitive elephant. Whenever momentarily distracted by branches, Edgar took it upon himself to regain prime position on the walk by off roading and almost decapitating murph. Finally came the bamboo rafting where we found our punter was a psychotic livewire which made for an interesting trip down the river- ending with us paddling in sewage and rat infested water.

Overboard on bamboo raft

Chiang Mai, Thailand