Today is Today, Tomorow is tomorow: Hill Tribe Trekking through the Jungle!

Whew! So I am back in civilization after a cultural shower of Hill Tribes and Jungle Elephants and waterfalls. This will be a long one but here goes...

So I left Chiang Rai headed for Chiang Mai and already the bus ride through the mountains was breathtaking. I got to see an orange and pink sunset over misty mountains full of lush trees without sweating at all, haha. Got to Chiang Mai and got dropped off for half of the price of a tuk tuk because I made friends with a thai family that ran a car service, sweet. While walking around trying to find a hostel, who did I run into but my friends Byrd and Mary from my flight. I dropped my bag, grabbed a big chang beer and we exchanged stories of our trips thus far. They had gone to Sukhothai and Ayutheia(spelling?) and had a great time checking out wats(temples) and a bunch of other cool stuff. They had already booked a hilltribe trek for three days for 1800 baht, 60 bucks, while I had been haggling from 5000 -3500 back in Chiang Rai. They invited me to join their trek and i did. I went to Graces guesthouse and dropped my bags off. We all got showered and went to...yep, MUAY THAI FIGHTING! In Bangkok it was at least 1500 baht(50 bucks) but here it was only 400! We saw kids fight, women fight, and men knock the crap out of each other. It was a cultural phenomenon to see them cheer their kids on. After the fights, and my lost bets of 3 dollars total, I squared off against Byrd. Fun times.

Got up early the next morning and caught our group consisting of Byrd, Mary, Me, David(british dude heading off to college soon), Jorgen and Sandra(Dutch Newlyweds on their honeymoon), Adam and Durren(british backpackers, and our guides Po and Ni(who i called Bill Nye the Science Guy). We rode out to a local mkt where I grabbed pad thai for 10 baht(30cents). Then we rode up to ride elephants. Initially we were waiting so i went to play with the elephants on break and tried to wrestle a 2 week old baby. Uhhh, i lost, haha. THey are playful little beasts! Me and David were on the papa elephant. You could tell by his insanely large, well you get the picture.

And no, that wont be posted, but yes i did get a shot of it. We rode them around and I actually sat on his neck and drove a freakin elephant! It was amazing. Definitely one for the memories. After elephanting, yep just said that, we went and had lunch whcih was pad thai, rice and stuff and lots of pineapple. Awesome. Then we trekked to this nice waterfall where we played around a while and cooled off. then we trecked into the hills for around 2 hours to the Karon Hill tribe where Po grew up. It was gorgeous there. Had a huge dinner, drank a bunch of Chang beers, played guitar by the campfire, made up a Hill Tribe song including water buffalo of course, etc. I even got to muay thai fight an 8 yr old, haha. His dad told me to whip his ass and if i didnt have like 130 pounds on him it might have been a different story, tough kid. saw some huge spiders and we slept in a bungalow with mosquito nets.

Woke up the next day and trekked a long way with a new sweet walking stick to another amazing waterfall where we actually slept that night. we ate dinner, played in the water, told ghost stories, laughed a lot, went for a midnight fishing exploring expedition and all the necessities of the hill tribe life. By the way, our guide Po was the coolest guy ever. He is actually a member of the Karon Hill tribe and runs his own business at the age of 24. He can do anything and he taught us that Today is Today, Tomorow is Tomorow. Always smiliing and laughing and making a great time. We zonked out and got some good sleep and went on a good long trek to meet up and go bamboo rafting. The guys raft definitely dominated the girls raft if you were wondering. We even got to rope swing and jump of a 25 ft rock jump into a huge pool of drunken thais, haha, they were still celebrating songkran. an old man yelled "Phalang" which means westerner, and shook my hand after jumping. Then we hopped in the truck and went back to Chiang Mai. Me and David switched hostels to TK's where we had a view over the whole city and a holiday inn style suite for, yep you guessed it, 300 baht total. I payed 5 bucks for a room, I love Thailand!

We all showered up and met up with the whole group and went for a massage. My thai massage was an hour and cost me 5 bucks, yep, and I felt awesome. did I mention this place is cheap? That would have cost 60 bucks in Texas. We all bounced around and met up with Adam and Durren at a rooftop bar then rolled over to Reggae bar where no other than Mister Po and Mister Ni were awaiting our arrival! We partied like rockstars and danced the night away like the drunken western tourists we are. Had a blast with the group. We got late night food and even managed to ride a motorbike for part of the ride home. Asleep at 5:30am, great night.

Woke up, switched hostels to Julie Guesthouse which is famous. Met and had a drink with the girls, then I went to sort out this suit thing in Thailand. I had been referred by David, my retired CPA friend in Chiang Rai, to a place which Julie also recomended. I went and bought three custom made high quality suits, two custom shirts, and three ties for the grand price of...$500. yep, i love Thailand. Now im gonna go nap and meet up with Jorgen, Sandra, Mary, and Byrd for our all last night together.

Wow what a trip it has already been and I cant even begin to imagine what the rest has in store because to be frankly honest, I didnt even really know that much about this part of the trip till I got here and it has been awe inspiring.