Chiang Mai part 3 - The trek

The 6th of October was the best day of my entire life. After school today Tori, Tori Callie, Sophie, Matt,Alex, Mariah, Erin and I all went to the Bunny Cafe! This was so adorable .

The entrance of the 'Lucky Bunny' cafe

There were about 15 rabbits in hutches and we all sat round a tiny little table on tiny little stalls. One by one the guy there put a rabbit on the table. We enticed the rabbits onto our laps with food - sooo cute! We were told about the health and welfare of the rabbits and how they're treated well wit a good diet and that a vet regularly visits.

After the rabbits (and thoroughly washing our hands) we sat down to dinner. Well, I say dinner - it was more of a snack. Meaning that on the way home we stopped at Burger King to properly fill up.

After school the next day a load of us went to the cinema to watch 'The Martian'. The cinema cost 100฿ and the additional food (basically a large popcorn) cost about the same. The cinema was absolutely amazing and super posh, with comfy seats and loads of leg room!

Over that weekend the majority of us went on a mountain trek. We were ready for 8AM dressed in swimsuits and shorts with fat backpacks provided to us by the guesthouse! We all got into 2 trucks - driven by our guides and drove for about 20-30 minutes to a little markets where a load of us but some snacks. By this point my flip flop (May It Rest In Peace) was falling apart - making it impossible to walk in. I could of sworn that it was fine when I put it on!

The next part of our journey was a 2 hour bumpy ride to a waterfall that we could go swimming in! Whilst walking from the bus to the waterfall the top of my flip flop came away from the bottom - rendering them completely unusable! Thankfully Lucy, the angel that she is, lent me her flip flops whilst she wore her trainers.

The water at the waterfall was very cold but once you got in it wasn't so bad! 

After the waterfall I put on my denim shorts over my wet swimsuit due to a lack of a changing area. We then drove to a little wooden restaurant for lunch which tasted amazing! I mean sure, I was freezing cold but the food made up for it. 

Thankfully, we then drove to some hot springs (I promise we do go on a trek at some point!). The hot springs were pretty decent except they weren't hot hot. There was another hot spring which was hotter but apparently is was too hot for any human to touch so were had to stay in the cooler one. 

After this FINALLY the trek began. Oh. My. God. This was hard! Whenever we were going uphill (which was half the time) I felt like my lungs were going to explode. Going downhill (the other half of the time) it felt like my legs were made of jelly and I very nearly fell over so many times.

About half way through the trek we all stopped to eat some snacks. We ate some longan fruit (which was so delicious) some sweets and a really tasty chocolate bar. 

We finally reached our camp at about 6 pm. All of us stayed in a bamboo hut which was really cute. Our beds consisted of a couple of blankets on the floor (two to a bed), a blanket to cover us and of course a mosquito net.

Dinner that night consisted of yellow curry and spring rolls - which tasted amazing. It was the best food I'd had so far! 

After dinner I managed to get my turn in the shower. The shower was in a dark wooden shack and consisted of a hose pipe attached to the wall - it was freezing! Anna had to stand outside and hold all my clothes as there was nowhere to out anything.

Finally, we all wrote on a couple of lanterns and sent them up into the sky, which was insanely pretty!

The next day I woke up (after a freezing night's sleep) and it was pouring with rain outside! When it eventually cleared up we had a brilliant breakfast and packed our bags. 

We then walked down to the river where we could buy a bunch of bananas to feed the elephants - which was a little scary! 

After feeding them we all got in the water to wash them which was fun! We then got the chance to ride them!  

I have to say I did have conflicted emotions about riding the elephants. We had chosen this hike as it was more expensive and we had been assured by our guesthouse that the elephants were well treated. We rode on the elephants back and not on the wooden seats that you sometimes see in travel brochures. This was good as apparently the wooden seats hurt the elephant and are a sign on mistreatment.

We rode the elephant for 20-30 minutes before swapping with others.

We rode the rest of the way down the river on bamboo rafts. Which was decent but not as fun as white water rafting. We moved at a very slow pace and by the end of the seemingly 3 hour ride, we were all freezing! Thankfully, at the end we were greeted with hot food!