Day 27...Chiang Mai

Hello hello,

So it was our second day of trekking today. We woke up with the rooster and the sun which was very annoying more than anything else - but considering there are no curtains (or windows for that matter) it was unavoidable. Luckily enough we didn't get any mossie bites. As this is the area we had to take the malaria tablets for every time we see a mossie we are freaking!

After breakfast we went elephant riding for about 1hr 30mins. This was truely a rollercoaster experience. The guys who were helping us get onto the elephants were calmly jumping from one elephant to the next but I was too scared even to get onto one! The set-up was three people per elephant, two on the chair which was tied to its back and one on the head. Dom and I got the daddy elephant which was the biggest of the lot. To climb onto it we had to go froma platform, step across its head then onto the chair. Dom got on first, and without been insulting, the chair looked liked it was going to tip over to one side when he got on, I got on next hoping to balance the weight out. The last guy who was on the same trek as us had the privilege of the head whic turned out to be quite bony! At first we were going down a steep hill and it literally felt as if we were going to slip off, then we started going down really narrow tracks that you would never think in a million years that an elephant would fit down. Ours must have been really thirsty as it kept heading towards the river instead of the tracks - we didnt know what to do as how do you control an elephant? After the tracks we started to head back to the village, in the river, the elephants were squirting water and finally ours got the drink it wanted. At first it was quite scary as your legs are dangling down the side of the elephant (and its a long way down!) but after a while you got used to it and started to enjoy it. Dom and I had nicked a couple of bananas from breakfast which we both (Dom as well) fed to the elephants when we got back to the village. All of a sudden about 5 women appeared with a whole bunch of bananas for 50 baht each to feed to them - always about money!

After the exitement of the morning we packed our bags ready to bamboo raft back to the first village we were in yesterday. If you remember from Kanchanburi in Thailand we actually did bamboo rafting there, but it turns out that this was completely different. In Kanchanburi we were sat down on the rafts, there was no current and we just paddled leisurely along for about 20 minutes. This time it was like the river wild! There was four to a raft plus a guide and each person was strategically placed. The guide went though what we were to do on his instructions for every time we got to rapids -so we knew this was getting serious. We had all been told to put shorts on and take off our shoes and socks, and all the bags had been tied to a post at the front of the raft. When we got going we really got straight into, it was rapids all the way. Dont forget that these rafts are literally just pieces of bamboo tied together with bamboo bark, no straps and nothing to hold onto to stop you going into the water - in fact, one guy did fall in - with his camera - doh! Some of the rapids were so strong that the water was above your knees. We were rafting for about 2 hours downstream which was hard work but so well worth it, everytime we got through a whole bunch of rapids there would be screams of joy!!

After some lunch we then headed back to Chiang Mai as our trekking was over. It was a fantastic experience in a wonderful place and we survived in one piece.

We are so looking forward to a proper bed at some point as the last few days have been hellish. Tonight was to be another long night as we were flying to Bangkok, spending the night in the airport before flying to Penang in the morning. Obviously last night we slept in a hut, the night before we had about 4 hours sleep (due to the pageant) and the night before that we were on the overnight bus!!

Onto Malaysia...

Team Domro