Day 12 Trek to the Rafting

Awoke at 5am to the sound of the worst cockrel yet, it was a real cock a doodle squak! Lay thinking of ways to kill a cockrel until wandering in to wake the girls at 6am.

Each day Pok gave us the times for breakfast, and vacating our rooms, after 12 days my head was a scramble of 7ams, 7.30ams and so on, so I had not the faintest idea what the timings were for today, so 6am seemed as good a time to start as any!!

The girls were now proficient at getting up, dressed and packed whilst still officially asleep so we trundled down to the porters hut for breakfast probably rather early. Where a German chap and his two female Thai companions who had been staying in the village were also breakfasting.

After breakfast our bags were loaded into the trucks to go stright back to the resort and we prpared for our day of trekking and rafting. We were kitted out with life jackets and hard hats. We were also given a new walkin stick. This set Pete off bemaoning the loss of his origional walking stick, only a matter of time before he started on about his beloved thermometer.

As we were dressing ourselves our elephants arrived. The resort manager had some though an provided 4 elephants, 2 to carry the boats and 2 for us. The Thai ladies also got an elephant, they weren't really dressed for trekking, silk shirts, legging and flip flops are not jungle attire. The first Thai lady climbed on the elephant fine, the second got one foot up, grabbed hold of the basket whilst the porters gave her a bunk up, and then the elephant decided to stand. Instead of letting go she held on, hanging from the wooden basket by her hands whilst her german companion and the porters tried to support her legs and shouted for her to let go. But she held fast, the elephant kicked away her helpers and tried to shake her off using his leg and her trunk. We sttod and watched, somewhat aghast, bemused as to why she didn't just let go, we were of course experts in all matters elephant by now! She eventually dropped down, none the worse.

When our lot jumped aboard their elephants they did so with nervous speed and agility!!

So the elephant people set off up stream, quite litterally, and the rest of us headed through the village for our trek. It was a sunny but not too warm day and the walking was easy, until we hit the first style. Thai fences are made from bamboo, and the styles are a variety of constructions, non of which look strong enough to support anyones weight, but we scrambled over only to be confronted by a steep slope to slip and slide down. We headed off, sometimes through jungle sometimes through fields of sweetcorn. Every now and then a fence to cross but all was well with the world.

And then came our first river crossing, over a bridge. The bridge spanned the river in two parts as their was a little central "island" It was a bamboo construction with three poles of bamboo to walk on and one to hold, all about 5 foot above the river. We all clung to the river bank as the group edged across one by one. The porters took our walking poles and laughed as we nervously edged across like a complete bunch of jessies!

Two of the proters tired of waiting for us to dither across and so waded over the river. Shikha and Rachel, who were at the end of the "queue" asked if they could do the same (as both have a healthy fear of high things) the proters waited to assist as Shikha, Rachel and I waded through the waist high waters. Pete who was behind us called us wimps and headed over the bridge with the last few proters behind him. As he got half way over the bridge collapsed and gave way, dropping 3 porters into the water and giving Pete a bit of a scare. The porters were all fine, it was only a short drop and they just got a bit wet. So I thank Rachel and Shikha for wanting to wade, as if they hadn't we would have gone in the water. I do hope that the bridge was easy to fix!

We carried on walking along the river but every now and then the trail crossed the river and as there were no more bridges we had to wade! The porters strung a rope across the river and stood along the rope holding it steady and we walked and stumbled across holding onto the rope, the rest of the porters stood downstream ready to catch us if we took a tumble. Most of the time the river was fairly placid so the porters and girls spent most of the tme splahing each other. Dryness was now a distant memory!

As we got further up the river the crossing got trickier. But soon it was time for the elephant swap over. Miss Stephens and her gaggle had spent their time luxuriating n the elephants and now it was their turn to get wet.

Pete and I then got on the elephants, with some f the girs and lurched the rest of the way up the river. After an hour we were a little "saddle sore" and pleased to scramble down at the rafting spot, damp, sore, bitten and hungry.