Back into the swing of things

Once again, I'm the only American.

Yu and I joined a group doing a two day hill tribe trek into the mountains north of Chiang Mai. The tour company divided the group by age, so we were hanging out with 20 and 30 somethings. We had 12 people most from Germany, a couple Dutch, and a couple Canadians (French). Our trip organizer reminded us to tell the others that we paid a higher price for the tour (since we had the Thai local price).

The trek was nice, and started with a short elephant ride. The novelty of riding an elephant wears off in about 15 seconds. There was a baby elephant which was kind of cute and was the center of attention for pictures. After the ride and crappy lunch we started the walk. Some people had issues with the climb which was nearly the entire three hours. Even with the shade from the jungle, it was a bit warm. One problem with walking through the jungle is that the trees are so thick that you can't really see anything until you get to a clearing. Eventually, we made it to the village where the views were much nicer.

The communal dinner was quite nice and for the first time in months, I really felt as if I was back in full traveller mode. Many of the people on the tour were seasoned travellers. At least half had already been to South America. Others were coming from China or other Asian destinations. Stephanie (one of the Canadians) had been travelling off and on for 11 years! The vibe for the entire evening was really good. We were able to share stories about places where we have been and funny language mix ups. The next morning I woke up at 5 AM due to the friggin roosters again. Those 5 AM rooster wake up call seems to be common no matter which continent you are on. We hiked down to a waterfall where I was able to swim a bit. No one else wanted to get in because it was too cold. It didn't matter because everyone got cold and wet from the white water rafting in the afternoon. Overall it was a good trek and the people I met were great. Looking forward to meeting them again some day.

I ended up doing something rash and bought another digital camera. The auto focus is not functioning properly on my current one. I can't afford to miss any pictures on this trip. Heading to Laos tomorrow, so I'm not sure when I can post more pictures.