Jungle Trekking, Elephant Riding and Room Lizard

Salutations from Thaiplace. Angela and I have returned safley from our jungle trek. The trip started off by us arriving in Chang Mai and crusing the sunday night market, where after riding on a train for 12 hours, a massage was in order. After the massage we found a nice burrito joint by our hotel and got ourselfs some grub. The next morning we were picked up and then we headed off into the dirt roads and side street markets of Chang Mai til we were in the jungle. Angela and I were in a group of 11 people. We quickly befriended a guy and a girl by the names of Francis and Mahnoh, they were from Holland! Also included in the group was another couple from Holland, two friends from Switzerland and a German girl. Unfortunately, due to the language barrier we didn't get to know the rest of the group until the end of the trekk. Francis and Mahnoh proved to be fantastic traveling partners for us. They were just lovely.

We started our trek by riding elphants for quite some time, this was amazing. The minute we got near them they loved Angela, they all came near, which freaked her out because they tried to grab the bananas she had in her hand with thier trunks. I had to swat them away. Seemed to work just fine. I was having a blast and Angela started to warm up to them when I learned that our elephants name was Bucow. (Knowing your elephants name is very polite- thank you Diana.) For the first half of the trek we sat in a seat on our lady elephants back, then I decided that if the the main guy could ride on his elephants head, so could I. So I tried standing, Bucow wasn't having it. I was content with sitting and so was Bucow, as long as I kept giving her bananas.

Then we left there and went to our first of many water falls.

This was very refreshing as the temp was around 90 to 100 degrees and very humid, so to swim in a pool at the bottom of a waterfall hit all the right spots. I even got Angela to climb into the waterfall with me and stand underneath it. Then, in sandals, we went deeper in to the jungle. The first day was mainly hill climbing. We climbed what felt like a mountain, well for me anyways. We brought one bag, full of mine and Angela's stuff. My stuff: a water bottle, a toothbrush, deoderant, soap, long pants, long sleeve shirt, swimtrunks, towel, flashlight, bugdope. Angela's stuff: 3 swimsuits, a personal bag, 2 long pants, a water bottle, 4 boxes of pockie (an asian cookie), a bag of nuts, a tube of pringles, three pairs of underwear, pair of socks, two sunglasses, a sorong, three shirts, and her toothbrush. (Angela would like you all to know that we were instructed to bring most of those items.) The contents of this bag weighed about 60 pounds total and after three days of trekking with this, my legs are feeling GREAT! On a side note, I lovingly carried this bag as Angela is amazing to me and and I would gladly do anything for her. She even offered to carry it at some points, and I told her no and that it was not a problem.

Now where was I . . . after what felt like the Cambondian death march up a mountain for three hours, we stopped at our first camp and ate dinner. It was about 7 pm and it was already getting dark. My flashlight/headlamp was amazing to them. They built a fire and that we sat arounnd all night singing songs. Our guides must have been in a band some where, cause they played the guitar very well. In the broken english they knew, they sang from an American song book. But the group favorite was "Wonderwall" by Oasis. The guides also tried to sing `Celine Dion's, "my heart will go on", "Santeria" by Sublime, more Oasis and some oldies. All mixed in with a few Thai songs. At the camps there were water bottles, tea, coffee powder and beer. So we went til about 1 in the morning or so (this was what we did every night) then at 9 the next morning we set off on another 6 hour jungle trek.T his was the easiest day, suprisingly enough. It was mostly flat land and we stopped at three waterfalls. We saw massive jungle spiders that were the size of my head and some nice water buffalo, hundreds of rice fields and a few wild elephants. Then the eating and singing and drinking contiued again. The last day we trekked for about 4 hours and returned to the base camp where we went rafting down a river on bamboo boats. Really fun except for the incredible amount of trash that lined the banks of the river.

That night, back in Chang Mai, our guides invited us to hang out and have dinner, as they had alot of fun with our trekking group. So . . . a little more beer, someone brought rum, Angela and I brought pizza and we had a party. We left the hotel and went to an oudoor bar that was having a reggae conert. This was amazing.The band, in the broken english they knew, sang alot of Bob Marley and some Sublime and even The Police. So much fun! The next morning was rough. While I nursed a small hangover Angela spent the entire morning in the potty with food poisoning. She was feeling very brave last night and ate a burger. (She also wants me to add that it was totally worth it because it was the best tasting burger she'd ever had.) I brought her toast from the lobby and then later in the day she had a craving for chicken nuggets from McDonalds. (Her appetite never ceases to amaze me.) Armed with Thai Baht, loose change and my walkie talkie, I left the room and ventured out to find the one mcdonalds in town. This took a while so I chatted with Angela over the walkie talkie as I searched the city. Success! McDonalds! On my way back to the hotel I was walking through an alley and some guy in normal clothes came up to me, grabbed my free arm and said something in Thai. He said the word money in English. Not thinking clearly, as I was hung over, I thought he was a begger so I reached in my pocket and grabbed some change. As I was bringing it out it clicked that I might be getting robbed. Immediately I tossed the change on the ground and continued on my way. The man seemed pissed and tossed my arm aside. Not going for the money in my other pocket or my walkie talkie, or the mcdonalds. Very... weird.... Anyways, I got back to the room and hung with Angela for the day. We watched movies as she recovered from the night before.

She also informed me that we have a gecko living in the room. He is nice and small and keeps to himself. He pays the rent by eating any random bugs that may enter our dwelling. Nice guy, I think I shall call him Phil.

So you are all now up to date and we shall keep you all informed of our next adventure. In two days we will be heading, by way of a 15 hour train ride, to the tiger temple in Kanchanaburi. Playing with live tigers. FUN!! As always thank you to our families and friends for all of your love and support.-Todd and Angela