Back from the Jungle (continued)

This is what we slept on the first night in our group housing with the Lisor Tripe. The mosquito net is hanging on the top right corner.

Me with the elephants at the Elephant Show.

...continued.

After our elephant trek, we arrived at the next village, the Karen Tribe. This was a larger tribe (5,000 members) and the shared housing at this village was definetly a step up from the one the night before (more cleaner and bug free). We spent the night eating and playing this hilarious game where we all get charcoal drawn all over our faces. Basically, by the end of the game I had a huge moustache (beats the heck out of having a unibrow though). We all had something drawn on our faces, and i looked so ugly but didn't care cause we all looked the same. We took a photo at the end and i'll try to post it as soon as I find a computer that will allow me to do so. I forgot my USB attachment key. =( Highlights from the rest of that night includes the whole Canadian side of the bench all falling off the bench and trying authentic "Jungle Juice" which is basically made from corn. It is apparently really strong as our leader demonstrated to us by lighting it up with a match.

We went to bed all tired from a long day, and although it was less colder than the night before, we were quickly woken up at 3:30 in the morning by many roosters crowing. The worst one was the one right near our side of the house, who crowed at an interval every 3 mins in a loud pitch. I basically didn't get much sleep that night. Luckily the next morning wasn't as bad.

Our last day in the jungle consisted of a four hour bamboo rafting ride down the river. Our whole aim was tryign to stay dry the whole entire trip. The rafts were beautiful as they were hand built using materials straight from the jungle. It's cool b/c they can only be used once and the materials are used for other purposes such as building bamboo umbrellas after. We finished the raft of with a nice pad thai lunch and headed for our truck which drove us back to Chiang Mai to our "Oasis Hotel".

We reached back at the hotel by early evening and it was so nice to finally take a nice hot shower. Actually, it was waaaay to hot. There was no cold water, and I had to take half my shower with scalding hot water, until Kary realized that there's no cold water b/c she turned on the A/C. We went our to the Night Bazaar in Chiang Mai for dinner and came back at 10pm to have our 2hour thai massage in our rooms for 400 bhats only. That's roughly 13 dollars. It was definetly needed considering we had to hike many hours w/ our packs on. Those thai ladies sure know how to give massages. I had a cute old lady and boy she's strong for her age and size.

The next morning, we checked out the "Oasis Spa". It was quite an experience. THey send a pimped out van to come and pick up and drop us off at the hotel to the spa. All three of us got a special package that included a body scrub, an hot oil massage, and a facial. It was 2.5 hrs of bliss. Of course, we fell asleep during it. This was a more pricier treat for ourselves ~ $3,000 bhats but definetly worth the experience. Then we were off on the night train and here we are back at Bangkok.

It's nice being back in a city you're more familiar with. We arrived this morning at 7am, took a nice warm shower, and checked out the weekend market. THis is similar to a flea market. It's huge and there's tons of shopping and different foods to try. Apparently, one of our fellow group members saw a bucket of mice being sold. yuck! We found some pretty good deals there in terms of shopping. It was nice to have prices finally on the items, and not having to test out our bargaining skills. TOday is definetly a lot hotter than previous days. We were so sweaty, we decided to come back early to our hotel and go for a dip in the pool. Kary and Kev tried to teach me the proper way to swim. I'm such a bad student. I really suck at swimming. so much work, so tiring! Ah well! We took a nice 2 hr nap, and had to meet w/ the group for the group meeting. That concluded the Northern part of our Roam Thailand tour, and now we're starting the Southern part where there's more beaches and water sports. We met two new members of our groups (4 previous ones left), and we're all excited to start the second half. Some of our fellow travellers are checking out the "ping pong show" tonight. It's not quite our taste so we decided to come back to Khao Sanh Road for some more shopping and finish some errands. I finally uploaded some photos. Will now attempt to post them.

I'll try to blog again later when we're down south. Miss you all lots. xoxo.