The Jungle Trekk in Chaing Mai - Day 1

The jungle trekk lasted for 3 days and was one of if not the hardest thing Vicky has ever had to do in her little life. Brett too found it a huge challenge but soldiered through.



The trekk begins with an early pick up, driving a couple of hours to the chaing mai jungle. We stopped off at a market on the way through so that the guide could buy some ingrediants for dinner. As we are getting out of the mini bus there are woman bombarding you with things to buy, one of these was a drinks holder that has a strap to go around your neck making it easier to carry. We decided to buy one of these and bartered a fair price what was really annoying was that once we had bought the one she was pushing more at us buy more buy more and it takes some assertiveness to really make them understand no! Then you have the other woman looking at you like why didnt you buy from me and eyeing us up?! pretty strange.



Once we got to the beginning of the jungle we had our Elephant ride, i have to admit i felt pretty bad stepping on the poor elephants neck to get on him! We decided to name our elephant eddie, we thought "Eddie the Elephant" sounded pretty cool haha. We have some really good pics of this that are on facebook.



We had a bit of a wayward elephant infront of us, he decided to take a dump right infront of us, then have a wee. Its soooo strange he starts weeing then this huge thing slowly works its way out and when the elephant is finished it stays there and the elephant kicks it around as he is walking getting it all muddy and well it must get sore!! It was gross!! haha

We then went and had a thai lunch before setting off on our trip still excited and not sure what to expect! We were with a group of a few other people, a dutch girl, 2 irish guys and a french couple who were all pretty cool.



After lunch we set off.... and the challenge began!



The mountain was so steep it may as well have been vertical, it was so hot and humid and we had our bags as well. The guide was steaming it up but Vicky couldnt keep up and had to keep having lillte breaks. (Those of you who know Vicky, know that she and exercise are really not best friends haha) Unbeknown to us we had 4 hours of this ahead of us on the first day, 7 hours on the 2nd day and 2 on the last! It was really quite daunting and a huge challenge. Vicky wasnt so bad when it was walking on the straight or even down hill, it was the up hill slog that was gruelling and reduced her to tears a couple of times. With Brett by her side, supporting her and making her believe she can carry on and to basically suck it up haha she did it and felt so proud at the end of the three days. We managed to pick up a few bites, bumps, bruises and scrapes along the way. A moment in particular which is worth a mention is when we stopped of the see a bat cave. The lads decided to go for a mooch down in the dark where literally you couldn't see a thing. Brett led the way only to make one step down the rock and fall down to the bottom. Now, bear in mind you couldn't see a thing we all thought, including Brett, he was a gonner. He did shout he was OK though so everything was fine, apart from the fact he picked up a couple of nasty scrapes that Vicky cleaned up for him! We then saw a few bats, which weren't even down in the pitch black abiss! They were right up at the top near the entrance!

The first night we stopped off at a village that was by a waterfall so we got showered (with shower gel haha) in the waterfall. The whole group was so tired after our 4 hour up hill slog that we ate and were in bed at 7.30pm - 8pm!

Waking up in what felt like the middle of the night but was really 11pm we chatted and talked about the past few days and how fast paced we were moving. After finding the day so difficult Vicky cried with fear for the next 2 days and feeling she would not be able to do it and be stuck to die in the jungle haha after a while and plenty of talking we were fine and eventually went off to sleep. The village was small and we slept in a bamboo hut with dirty make up matresses that were about an inch think surrounded with mosquito nets to keep the bleeders out. We had rats scratching on the doors to try get in and heard all sorts of wierd and wonderful noises.



Coming soon to your pc screens....DAY TWO OF THE JUNGLE TREK! starring Brett Cullen and Vicky De Meillon.