Tag Archive: hike


Bears of Paradise

Woke up and headed off for a quick breakfast. Our goal today was to visit a waterfall we had heard about from the guide book. We started haggling with a tuk-tuk and moved off from him, found another who would go for the price we wanted, but he wanted to find more people to make it worth his while. After like 20 minutes of driving around (and I am sure, wasting more money on fuel than he would have if he just drove us right away) we popped off in search for a new tuk-tuk. After the waste of time we settled for a different, slightly more expensive, but ultimately cheap tuk-tuk which got us to the falls 40 km later.

We bought a couple sandwiches from a vendor for a picnic later and headed into the park. It turns out there was a bear rescue place there with tons of bears. It looked like a really nice place for them actually and there we all these hammocks that they would lay in that looked really really comfy.

We got to the first pool of water and small fall and we were just taken back. The turquoise water described in the book was better than could be imagined. The water was cool, but comfortable. When we get around to getting these pictures up you will not believe it.

We checked out all the different falls and when it got to the first, largest fall Amy and Jen decided to go off to swim, while I decided to check out where a trail led. Turns out it led to the top of the fall, and it was one heck of a hike to make in flip flops. On the way down I ended up going barefoot just to get at least a bit of traction on the dirt. I ended up running into some boat people on my way up. They are everywhere. The view was nice, but maybe not really worth the amount of effort it took to get up there and down.

By the time I met back up with Amy and Jen I was just soaked in sweat and really ready for a swim. There was a rope swing and Amy teased me onto it… what a great way to get into the water. A brief swim, under the waterfall, a few swings and it was time enough for us to go back.

When we came into the room it took us only a second to realize something was off. Amy quickly noticed that the chocolates we on her bed (off of the TV where they were being left untouched.) The pyramid was open and wrappers were everywhere around it. It was very clear that some one was in there, which worried the hell out of us because for the first time ever, knowing we were going swimming and not wanting to leave our passports on the shore unattended we left them in the room along with our extra cash and other valuables. I had $200 laying on the nightstand, right in the open (stupidly.)

After a really thorough look through everything we realized absolutely nothing other than the chocolate was taken. No cameras missing, no money gone, no credit cards taken, no passports stolen… it is one of the weirdest break-ins I have ever heard of, let alone experienced.

We alerted the staff, and it was not easy to explain that some one broke in, took chocolate, nothing else, and then locked the door again on the way out. Then we went for dinner, valuables all safely back in our backpacks and bags on our shoulders. A cocktail, a crepe, and a massage later we were back to the room before curfew.

North Thailand Trek – Day 1

We woke up around 8:00 to give copies of our passport to the guide to take to the tourist police (so they knew who was where) then later around 9:00 were picked up to bring our bags to storage. We left around 10 so the guide could pick up the ingredients for our dinner at a market. Our tour consisted of 4 Danish girls: Louise, Lada, Sophie, Melaina; 2 Austrian girls: Agnes, Juliet; 2 Australians: Sam, Lisa; 1 U.K. guy: Tej and us 3 Canadians.

The first stop was the elephant park. We had some food first and then got up on the elephants. We were short one elephant sort, so myself and Tej ended up riding on the neck of the elephant where the guide usually goes. Amy and Jen were in the seat behind me… at least at the beginning. The seat started tilted to one side, Amy’s side, and it just kept going more and more. Eventually it was me jumping off the elephant to try and hold up the seat while Amy and Jen hung on up top. Eventually we got them back up onto the neck of the elephant and were able to reattach the the seat to the elephant and continue the tour. The rest of the trip on the elephant consisted of him sucking up saliva and spraying it on us as we walked through the jungle.

We then got to the first day of hiking. It was pretty hard the first day. Really steep, really hot, and really dry. For the most part the group stayed pretty close together, but for the end, the steepest part Tej and I decided to go off ahead a bit instead of waiting for everyone as we had been and as happens when two guys are off showing that neither of us are all that tired, we ended up hiking up a lot fast than either of us really wanted to.

Eventually we met up with the guides brother who took us to the village. By the way, the guide’s nickname is Oaf — pronounced “Off.” Anyways, we get up there, a really neat bamboo building with nice mosquito nets. Amy and I got a massage from the tribe, it was really nice after the day of hiking. I had 3 people working on me at once… fan-tastic!

Dinner was curry by candle light, followed by fruit. We played cards with Tej and Louise and Lada for a while and had a pretty early night (even after trying to stay up “late” aka like 9:00)

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