"Oh My Buddha"- Chiang Mai Jungle

I believe I left off at... ELEPHANTS!

Thai Elephants!!!

Last Tuesday Claire, Clay, Marina and I got up and ready for our trek out into the jungle. It was only the 4 of us, which was nice because we got our own private guide, Rocky. We got picked up at our guesthouse, 'Nice Place', hopped into the bed of a truck and we were off! Pretty much all transportation around here is in the bed of a pick up truck, however it has a shell over it and two benches along the sides, so its not totally uncomfortable :) I have to note that on our ride out into the wild, we were SUPER excited to get out of the city and couldn't stop singing "In the Jungle" from the Lion King...oh- weemb-a-what, oh-weemb-a-what!

Clay singing "In the Jungle" off the back of the truck

Jungle Camp

Once we arrived at camp, we changed into our special elephant clothes and had Mahout training. We learned simple thai commands to communicate with the elephants. Like 'bai' for go, and 'hue' for stop. We practiced these commands on Wasanai, a very gentle sweet elephant before heading out into the jungle for a couple of hours. We each got our own elephant to ride, and rode them without a saddle through mud, plants and trees. I never realized how strong elephants were until my elephant, Poihi, started ripping trees out of the ground!! He washuuungryyyy and man can elephants EAT!I literally got stuck in a tree, and it's not because I climbed one, it was because Poihi pulled one down onto my head! More then once! But it just made myself and the others laugh, so it was all good. Once we got back to camp, we bathed the elephants in the river and when they had had enough water, Claire, Clay, Marina, and I continued to have a water fight... and then just sat and talked in river. Shortly thereafter, a Mahout walked by and giggled saying "be careful for the leaches..." and we sprinted out of that water soooo fast I felt like Flash from the Incredibles. 

Poihi and I

Playing in the River... haha! 

That night we ate at camp and played card games with some other trekkers that were there on another tour. Then we celebrated Clay's birthday with a pile of bananas, an elephant... and beer :) After a cold night in the huts (the first time I have been cold on the trip thus far) we woke up, threw on our still wet bathing suits and trekked with the group to a waterfall in the jungle. But this wasn't just any old waterfall... it was a waterside! At first, I was hesitant to go down the stone waterfall but after the tour guide did it, we couldn't get enough! It was awesome! After some lunch, we hiked back to the trucks and rode over to a hill tribe nearby. It was very interesting to see how Thai people lived outside the city. Its a very simple life, very basic and everyone shares and does favors for their neighbors instead of being paid for work. After saying goodbye to the hill tribe villagers, we headed back over to the river for some white water rafting! Our guide was amazing and kept starting water fights with any other boat that crossed our path, on the more calm parts of the river of course. Claire even got kidnapped by another raft halfway through, but was able to get away and swim back to the American/Argentinian raft. :) Once the rapids were through, we continued down the river on a bamboo raft, except the bamboo raft had a little trouble staying afloat, haha! 

My Girls in our elephant outfits :)

Our group of 8 or so were not only trying to stay afloat, but trying to balance our bamboo raft while trying not to think about the water snakes we were seeing... Ahhhh! It sounds terrible, but I promise it was a lot more fun then just sitting on a raft floating down a calm river. 

Overall the trip out into the Jungle was amazing. Great people, awesome elephants, and an overall great experience in Northern Thailand. 

Cultural Tip of the Day: Here you don't say "Oh my God"... It's "Oh my Buddha" ;)