Having arived in Chiang Mai I booked my self onto a 3 day trek that was leaving the following morning. There was a group of 13 of us, although it was supposed to be 14 but one of the people became ill the night before. There was a nice mix of people with 2 from France, 2 from Holland, 2 from switzerland 5 from Ireland and 2 of us from england.
The first day of the trek was mainly spent in the back of a truk which drove us to a market so that the guide could pick up provisions for meals and so that we could purchase any water that we required for the day. We werre then driven to a waterfall at the edge of one of the national parks where we spent a small amount of time having a swim before traveling on further for lunch. After lunch we had a 2hr walk through the “jungle” to our camp for the first night, which was a small wooden hut at the edge of a hill tribe village. The facilaties were basic, with the shower being go and stand in the river under a piece of bamboo that was carrying water from further up stream.
The second day started with a 3hr walk before lunch and then a 2hr ride on an elephant to just outside another hill tribe village. This village was much larger than the first and even had a school. After settimg up in our accomodation we had a football match against the locals.
Day 3 was a 4hr ride on a bamboo raft down the river. Our bags were suspended of a tripod in the middle of the raft to stop them from getting wet, although at times when going down some rapids the raft would sink down and the bags got very close to the water.