Blog du Wren

Trekking in Doi Inthanon National Park

In Chiang Mai, we signed up for a 2 day/1 night guided trek north of town. It was exactly what we were hoping. All in all, we hiked maybe 6 miles on sometimes slippery terrain. This was spread out over a couple sections in between various villages, waterfalls, etc. It was really cool to see the villages they took us to. The first one consisted of just 4 families, and everyone went about their business instead of putting on a show for us honkies. Their dwellings were a covered area, a small portion of which had a raised floor for sleeping. No walls. Otherwise, it was dirt floors. Very similar to other extra rural dwellings I've seen around the world. Hey, if it works...

Other highlights included the elephant ride, which I liked much better than I thought I would. We rode two to an elephant for about an hour. When our guy got moving, it got a little rough up top, but mostly he was just lumbering down the trail. We fed him bananas when he was a good boy, but he got pretty greedy and finished them off in the first 10 minutes.

The visit to the waterfall was somewhat marred by the presence of leeches in the water, but of course we didn't find those until we were out. Not too much of a problem, however. One did escape my detection, so I ended up with a much sated friend down the trail a ways.

We finished up the mini trip with a rafting excursion down a river. The rafts were long pieces of bamboo roped together. Our guide used a pole to keep us from banging into the rocks. We got to stand mostly, so it was like we were surfing down the river.

Coming back to Chiang Mai, we piled 14 of us into a small truck and just watched the scenery roll on by. It was really a great trip.

riding elephants is fun

Andrew leads the way through rice fields

Thursday September 21 2006

File under: travel, Thailand

Toggle Comments (8)

comment?

on Thu 21st Sep, 2006 01:18 pm UTC jule said:
so I guess martial law doesn't really matter in rural thailand? Or do they role into town on elephants toting bananas? great pics!
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on Thu 21st Sep, 2006 05:02 pm UTC Saxtor said:
Great pics. Who's the lady?
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on Fri 22nd Sep, 2006 02:31 am UTC Trista said:
ditto.
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on Fri 22nd Sep, 2006 05:08 am UTC Mom said:
So, I guess up in the hinterlands they are coup-less, so to speak.
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on Fri 22nd Sep, 2006 06:09 am UTC Wren said:
We are pretty much oblivious to all the political goings on over here. We only learned about that stuff from people e-mailing us from home. (P.S. thanks for that!) But it sounds like we are completely safe. "No problem," as the english challenged locals might say. Andrew made a post about it over at his blog, with a link to some state department stuff. http://www.brothersroot.com/blog/?p=289
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on Fri 22nd Sep, 2006 03:48 pm UTC Auntie Rose said:
Who's the blonde with the braid??????? SWEET
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on Sat 23rd Sep, 2006 04:26 am UTC Mom said:
BTW did that elephant back into a tennis match and capture a racket with it's tail?
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on Sat 23rd Sep, 2006 10:25 pm UTC said:
Margret: Master Observationologist! Who knew?! Of course, the elephant isn't the only reptile in the photo, the area is infested with Crocs! And yes, elephants ARE reptiles...
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