We woke up had eggs with toast and fruit. We had some time so we walked around the village. Granted there was a solar panel powering the store, and some hefty radio antennas by some of the huts, you felt that you were at an authentic (if slightly modernized) hill tribe village. There wasn’t anyone trying to sell you gaudy souvenirs, the water and pop didn’t really cost much more than it would from the 7-11 down in Chiang Mai. There was a school with about 12 kids in it, cattle roaming around, chickens everywhere (the roosters started at about 1:00am eugh!) pig pens, pigs not in pens, really neat stuff.
We got back and it was a much easier hike to the next village, much smaller, and essentially it was just to get out of the sun, buy some water, and maybe a bag of chips. We walked along a stream, through the jungle, and eventually to the first waterfall. It wasn’t huge and the water was freezing, but it was an opportunity to swim and become less sweaty. We had lunch and played with a cat for a while and then went on to the next waterfall. It was beautiful, sandy bottom, but not deep enough to swim. The water seemed warmer and it was great for the legs and feet to cool off. After this we walked off to the camp for the night. No roosters this time! It was right on the side of the creek, and we had a big bonfire. There were some huge chunks of wood and Tej and I had a mission to burn through them before going to sleep.