Thailand

Chaing Mai Jungle Trek
Jungle trekking - a walk in the park. Not a chance, hacking through jungle, attacked by leaches which can happily get through linen trousers, to end up at a hill tribe for the night. We stayed in the chiefs house which was on stilts and basically a big room with one side room for the chief. We were told that it was customary to bring the chief a gift and that they like whisky. Well, he did, he went to his room, drank his whisky and came out somewhat tipsy. Whilst he was absent, our guides cooked us a green chicken curry, it's only then that you realise the guide had been carrying the raw chicken all day through the jungle in his backpack, but we were fine, so I guess it was ok. The chief later offered us some dried deer meat from his latest hunting mission, it was a little chewy, and Jane refused it. One important point to note when you have a house on stilts and no internal toilet - it's very difficult to go in the night in the pitch black :-)
The next day an elephant arrived as our transport to the local river. The ride was ok, but elephants don't seem to consider that the branches of the local forest will flick back to those on top, as they move through and swat them aside.
When we arrived at the river, our transport was a raft of bamboo tied together, with some bamboo poles to steer and propel us. One guide had never punted before, but luckily I had at college. The raft sank about four inches into the river so we were definitely wet as we traversed the rapids. Half way through the guide who'd never been on the raft before lost his pole, but at least we had the other one. The river was relatively tame but wide, so we did arrive at the other end.
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