Today is trek day – we’re going out into the mountains and doing a 1 day trek from the Lisu Lodge. We are leaving really early – 7 am – so Nine has gotten up early for us and given us the fruit platter breakfast! She said that’s all she could do at that time of the morning – we’re appreciative to have anything – especially the coffee – no complaints from us!
Our driver – Charlie – arrives and off we go. You’re out of the city in no time – it’s amazing how quickly you can be in the country. We drive for about an hour and then turn off heading toward Lisu. After about 10 minutes it’s apparent we’re lost! Charlie is stopping and asking people and calling people on his phone. We’re trying not to giggle in the back, but it’s kind of funny. Except that now it’s 8:15 and we’re worrying that we’re missing the tour. He finally finds his way to the lodge by 8:20 and there is no one there. The girl comes out looking at her watch and we are just certain we’ve been left, but she says we’re not going until 9:00 – phew! Charlie is relieved as well and sent back to Chiang Mai with instructions to pick us up at 3:30.
We’re sent to a lodge to relax and wait for the tour. The lodge’s are totally wild. Like a huge open air wooden veranda. A huge Lanna style roof covers the entire structure, there is a bar with refrig. and 7 rooms on the perimeter of the upper level – all basic – beds with mosquito netting and a little bath. It’s quiet and serene, beautiful lush country side everywhere you look. Ed has some coffee and we wait for our guide.
At 9 we are beckoned into the yard and meet our trek-mates – a family from Belgium with grown son, daughter and daughter’s boyfriend. We get fitted for our bikes (the first part of our trek) and off we go. We ride 23 KM through gorgeous Thailand farmland and valley. It’s so scenic and peaceful, rice fields, water buffalo, marigold fields, clean fresh air. If there is a down side, it’s that we’re cruising along and don’t really have the opportunity for pictures. It’s just so pretty, it’s a real bummer we can’t show you what it looked like!
After about an hour or so, through rough roads and paved, up hills and down, we reach the Elephant camp where we get to ride the huge revered Thailand beasts. I’m really excited – I love elephants (hefalumps!) – so I can wait. That is until I really get up close to them and remember they are wild animals, no matter how trained, and they can charge. Ok – so now I’m freaked out because these things are HUGE! One almost bumps me into the truck as it comes down the path – the driver and I turn around just in time to avoid it. Watch your toes!
We all climb up and on the giants anyway, and off we go. At first it’s really fun, bumping along the path, looking out at the pretty rushing waters of the river (where we’ll white water raft soon), we’ve bought bananas to feed the elephant, and she wants them a lot! She keeps reaching her trunk back to grab a banana – which was hysterical – we were judicious and saved a bunch for later – but it was fun while she thought we still had some left. Fun, that is until the whole ride took a turn toward the terrifying. Walking around on the path, through the trees, fine, nice, cool, we’re on an elephant. Then, in front of us, there’s this ravine, straight down, right to the river, all mud and rocks and tree limbs….and we’re headed straight for it.
Oh lord – this is freaky! The elephant in front of us is literally sitting down on the rocks to lower itself down the cliff. We start going down and we are virtually at a 90 degree angle looking straight down over the elephants head into the rocks. Get me off of this thing now! All I can imagine is the elephant losing its footing and rolling – over on us! Talk about smushed! We finally make it down alive, but now, we have to go back up! Help! This is scarier than the scariest roller coaster I’ve ever been on! Then as we’re on the home stretch, walking toward our destination on the road above the ravine, the damn elephant keeps straying way close to the edge of the cliff – she’s looking for grass and food – but she’s scaring the hell out of me! Here – we’ve got bananas – take the darn things why don’t you – get away from the cliff! Argh!
Finally, finally, we’re away from the cliff. The elephants are 
hoofing it (really fast – really!) toward this hut…oh…we see….it’s a banana selling hut! They know they’ll get more. Ha! We outsmarted them though – we saved some of our bananas! Came in handy to get the darn thing to go back to the platform and let us off. Sheesh. I have a whole new appreciation of hefalumps! Babar that thing wasn’t!
So – what’s next? Near death on the waters? This is turning out to be a great day! Actually – I was afraid of the white water rafting and it turned out to be totally fun. The water had gone down enough that the rapids were about a class 2 or 3 and they were just great. Had a great guide – we were in the raft with the son (Eddie) of the Belgiums. He’s about 28-30, beefy guy, and he paddled all the time. Cool! I don’t have to do too much work! I’m liking this. Got totally soaked (thank you Nine for telling us we had to bring a change of clothes before we left –we had NO idea!!!) and it was oh so fun. I was whipping around in the back of that raft, falling down to the bottom, sliding around, but it was great!
After the rapids, we floated down to the picnic area and were treated to showers, changing areas, towels from the resort, and an appetizing picnic lunch of hard boiled eggs, fried pork (we think), rice with chili sauce, cucumbers and bananas (now we’re the hefalumps!). We spent a nice hour relaxing and getting to know our trek mates. Took off out of the picnic spot and visited an Akha native village where we got to visit a traditional house with the shaman’s wife. She now sleeps next door in her son’s semi-modern concrete block house, but supposedly before he built it, she stayed here in this little almost lean to with two bedrooms (1 partition with beds on either side) and a cooking area. She also supposedly doesn’t ever change her clothes because water is evil. 
We took pictures next to her and there’s no way she doesn’t change her clothes. She smelled way to good for that! Anyhow, fairy tale or not, it was fun to see the village and see how the people live there. Cute little kids, families setting up for a big celebration that night (fun except for the gun shots we kept hearing in celebration of whatever they were celebrating!).
We had the option to bike ride back to the lodge or truck ride. We all opted for the truck – although one of the guys had wanted to ride. When we left the village, Charlie, our guide seemed to have forgotten that! So back to the lodge we went, spending an enjoyable hour relaxing at the Belgian’s lodge (they were staying there for the night) before heading back down into town with Charlie.
We passed a supermarket and asked Charlie to stop. We were looking for wine, but a) it was really pricey and b) they couldn’t sell it between 2 and 5:30 pm. Weird! It was 4:30, so we left. We told Charlie what we were looking for and he took us to a whiskey store that had lots of wine! Success! I now have a bottle of white to enjoy at the hotel! And it was only $7. cool!
Back at the hotel – we tell everyone about the trek – and we show off our wine bottle. Stella immediately takes it from me and puts it in the fridge to get it cold for me. She says she’s charging for the refrigeration but she’ll let me use a wine glass! Too sweet.
Dinner was at the Green Tulip. Stella was cooking so we let her tell us what to order. It was all fantastic – pad Thai, pork and spicy soup. This food is too good to even describe. And of course, Douglas (the other Green Tulip mainstay) served me my wine flawlessly!
We then headed out and actually made it to the night market! It’s huge, monstrous and has all the stuff you’d ever want! Way too much, way to hot, we don’t need anything so we came, we saw, we’re outta here. Back down the street, we see a lot of foot massage places (they are everywhere here), but I’m looking for a leg wax. They point me to the salon across the street. Oh my gosh – it’s hysterical. The guys says sure, he can do it, but what he doesn’t tell me is that he doesn’t have enough wax to finish my legs. So he ends up using all the wax and then individually tweezering each hair! I’m in hysterics, Ed has come back from his beer and is giving us both looks! After over an hour, I’m done so I politely thank the guy, pay him his really cheap fee (even for what I got!) and head out into the pouring rain. We end up across the street at the Chiang Mai saloon for great beer, wine and popcorn! Yay! Popcorn – this is our kind of place.
After hanging out for a while, it’s still raining so we catch a tuk-tuk home. What a great day!
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