It's been a few days since my last post as I've had no signal or access to the Internet.
Over the last few days a group of us left Chiang Mai by jeep with a couple of local guides and went up into the mountains close to the border of Burma. We trekked for a few hours each day and all slept in a large hut in each village that we stopped in overnight.
It was really good to see how some of the people up in the tribes live with access to just the local stream for water cleverly plumbed in via bamboo pipes to fields and houses and how they lived their daily lives. I expected something quite primative but in reality whilst some of the home comforts that we would come to expect aren't there they lead a pretty good quality of life.
A lot of the huts have solar panels to generate electricity and they have schools to learn in up to 15years old in a nearby (well, within 2hrs walk) village where the kids can stop in the week to let the parents work either in the fields or making handicrafts.
There was plenty of wildlife around, elephants roaming about, chickens, pigs, cows and quite a few snakes and spiders too so it made things fun!
On the second day we went trekking on some elephants - it took a bit of strain off our weary legs and we also managed to get to a lot of places we wouldn't have otherwise been able to - it amazed me how agile elephants are and how they could get up such steep hills or wade through such deep water. I have plenty of cool photos to upload when I get home.
This morning we went water rafting down the river on some rafts made from bamboo canes -this was great fun, particularly when navigating through the rapids or going down some of the small waterfalls - I'm so glad I invested in some good drybags before I left as our stuff got soaked!
All in all it's been an amazing few days - I'm looking forward to a warm shower and a comfy bed though when we get back to Chiang Mai!
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