Big Hike

At 8:00am NOT sharp, we were picked up and squished into a van with 10 other people from around the world. Our drive to the beginning of our hike is an hour’s drive, so get comfortable.
When we arrived at the head of the hike we got to meet our elephant. Two persons to an elephant and each with a guide sitting on its head – well, except for the last elephant which was behind us and tied to the ear of our elephant (loosely tied). We boarded our elephant and of course what happens in the middle of the summer in the jungle??? It starts to pour! Raining so hard that the elephants have quite a difficult trek in the mud. For as large as the elephants are we were quite surprised just how elegant they can move through sketchy, muddy, trails. Towards the end of the trail we had to cross through the river. We had no idea how deep the river ran at this point but our elephant (and guide) seemed to think it was just fine – and it was. It was so cool to be on top of an elephant, cross the river, and back up the muddy, steep, embankment. I thanked our elephant for making it hike safely with a good head stretch and pat. He didn’t seem to notice. What he did notice was the pile of bananas waiting for him on the other side. For 20Baht (about 60cents) we could feed him ourselves. Boy, our elephant had a one tracked mind! All he wanted was all the bananas, but we were told specifically to feed them one by one!! Then I found myself being cornered by two other elephants whose riders didn’t buy the bananas!!! At one point I had three huge elephant trunks grabbing for the bananas I was trying to hide under my arm. I started feeding all three elephants one banana at a time but the middle elephant was becoming inpatient and he blew his trunk right in my face!! I got a bunch of hot air enough to make my hair fly around! It was pretty cool. Afterward we hiked through the jungle for a few hours to a few villages and a waterfall. It was a nice day of exertion in which afterwards our guide starts looking at all of our legs saying “leashes? Leashes??” What are leashes??? Oh….Leeches. Gross!! No! No leeches here, thank goodness. The end of our Day of Trekking would end with a bamboo raft ride down the river. Normally this would involve a raft for rapids, but there wasn’t enough water, so instead we stood on rafts made of bamboo sticks tied together with strips of tire. Sketchy. More sketchy was even though there wasn’t enough water for rafts, there was enough water for rapids!! We ended up hitting a tree and sending our guide flying forward into the water. Kind of funny actually!! But, alas, we all landed back safely on land and we beared the hour drive back soaking wet. Yuck.
Tonight we meet up with our Dutch friends for some more market shopping and eating. The Sunday market should be interesting and if it doesn’t rain anymore, they should be open ALL night!