After having an early night, I spent most of the night adding layers to myself to keep myself warm as it got really cold! In the end I found a position whereby I literally got inside my sleeping bag! We had to get up by half 7ish as instructed by one of our guides for a half 8 start, although time didn't seem in issue in such a remote setting. Breakfast this morning consisted of scrambled eggs and jam on toast to name a few things.
Whilst leaving the village after breakfast, I took in how amazing everything was. A shower made by the flow of water through bamboo, a big pestle and mortar like structure to crush rice, and the big wooden poles in the ground supporting the houses gave such a direct look into the construction of much of the infrastructure. After getting waved out the village by locals, with the odd little hello from the young children we headed up a dirt track which had been constructed through the forest by the locals to link their farm to the village.
A short while later we arrived at the farm which was a large open space in the valley. You could see how generations of people had shaped the land here. After a quick slingshot session where our guide just showed off again, we continued up a very steep hill which went up and up, before dropping down to the stream. We then continued up to a ridge which presented us with stunning views of the surrounding forest. It just put into perspective the size of the area. Apparently the forest stretched all the way to Burma which made it important not to get lost!
We continued along the ridge, and along the way I climbed the trees, and the local guides showed us these nuts on the floor where you had to crack the shell with a rock. I wasn't very good at the getting the nut as I was either too aggressive or didn't hit the nut hard enough. To add to this they gave us some weird fruit which was really sour and made my mouth dry the other day. The joys of jungle survival!
When eventually reaching the so called peak, we started heading down a very steep hill which put a few people on the floor. The problem was the path was very stoney and gave way easily. The amazing thing was that there was elephant dung on the path! We then reached the bottom and soon saw an elephant walking through the nearby trees. This turned out to be the elephant park and we followed the wider stream down to a gentle waterfall where we were able to cool the elephant with water.
Then we continued to the elephant park where we were able to hug the trunks and pat them. They are such gentle animals and do nothing sudden to scare you at all! I even got to feed it pineapple. After having pasta for lunch. It was time to ride the elephant. We had the choice of sitting on a seat, or on the elephants neck. I sat on the neck. It was an amazing experience having the ears flap over my legs, although the sharp hairs in the elephants body scraped over the legs with every stride, and it felt as if I could feel the leg muscles from the elephant with each step.
We swapped over with the other people half way down, and I continued down to the river at another local village, where I went for a paddle, although after getting out and standing on the rope bridge I realised I had been paddling with a load of massive catfish! It was also nice to see how the local villagers were harvesting the field.
After getting back with the whole group again, we continued for one last push to the village. I could tell everyone was tired as the once vocal group had turned to silence. The terrain got more severe later as we clambered over rocks, and at one point traversed across something like a cliff face next to the river! Soon after this we arrived into the village, which was much quieter than the last one as the main village was above our accomodation which was by the river.
After relaxing after a whole days up and down through the jungle, the local guide offered me some rice whisky which tasted disgusting! Soon after we were presented with yet another amazing home cooked dinner including potato spring rolls, Thai green curry and even sticky rice which was rice all stuck together. Our chief guide even asked me if I wanted to help but I left all the chopping to the girls to avoid me chopping my fingers off! I did however get forced into our local guides tequila challenge whereby I had to put salt in my mouth, down a shot of tequila, and then squeeze lemon in my mouth. I was left with a very salty mouth!
After dinner we had another camp fire on the balcony, and then the guides asked to play a game called "Bing Bong Bang" where we went round in a circle saying them words, and if you said Bang you had to point at someone and the people next to the person had to jump in the air. If you did something wrong you would get black stuff from the bottom of the pan wiped on your face. I ended up looking like snoopy!
We then returned to the fire where our local guide played the guitar and we sang along to some songs. They even tried to teach us a local Thai song for the bamboo rafting tomorrow. A few beers later people were going off to bed one by one. It was really nice sitting out in the middle of nowhere looking at such a pristine night sky compared to home. I eventually went to bed with the last people, let out my last remaining bit of wind, and settled down in what was a far warmer bamboo shelter than the previous night.
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