Jungle Trek- Panda Tours

This trip was amazing! 3 days and 2 night. About 16km round trip. This was my first major trek in a long time and very first in this damn heat and humidity. It's a good thing I'm not a punk and have the elevation advantage on my side.

Day 1 I was in a group of 5 with a French couple and 2 German women. The tour guide was a young Thai that recently graduated tourism school. Thai people have their name and then a nickname. His nickname was Ice. We began our trek around noon and hiked for about 4 hrs. It was 7km straight uphill all day long. We saw many fruits along the way and stopped to enjoy them all (mango, bananas, papaya and tamarind). I even knocked the bananas off the tree myself with a long bamboo stick. There were cabbage patches everywhere as that is the main produce the hill tribes grow. At least half of the fields were being burned in preparation for the upcoming rainy season so it was very smokey up there. We stopped at a bat cave on the way up which housed around 30,000+ bats. There were big ones, and very tiny babies! 

At the hill tribe village our group played some cards to relax upon our arrival. Soon after we could all move again I went to look around the village. I made a doggie friend and she followed me around and back to the hut we were staying in. Dinner was really good though I can't remember what it was now. We spent most of the night playing more cards and eventually went to sleep around 11. It took my quite some time to fall asleep on a thin mat on the ground in the hut. It was very very windy at the top of the mountain and it was pretty loud as we were trying to sleep, luckily I have ear plugs. For breakfast we were given coffee and used a very old kettle which was pretty cool. In addition to our breakfast we had a nice snack of bees. Yes, bees. Its's the mushy looking food pictured below. 

Day 2 our group hiked down to a waterfall and we enjoyed swimming and cliff jumping for about an hour. It was my first time cliff jumping in a while and was tons of fun yet I got both of my ears waterlogged. This led to a very uncomfortable rest of day 2. After the waterfall the rest of the group left and it was just myself and the guide. We went to lunch and to another waterfall. At the second waterfall 2 more people joined the group; another American from NY and a girl from Australia. She was really fun and we spent most of the remaining time chatting.
We hiked back to the jungle camp that I had lunch at and I just laid down trying to ignore the pain in my ear and get the water out. Unfortunately I was unsuccessful and it is still in there now! But it doesn't hurt anymore at least. That night we made a fire and say around it for some time just talking. Once we eventually went to sleep I could not stop smiling. It was awesome going to bed with the sounds of the jungle around me. There were crickets, other bugs that only god knows what and a bunch of random animal noises. It was so cool.

3 We hiked back down until we caught a cart to head to the elephant sanctuary! Here I got to feed an elephant; she loves bananas! The feel of her trunk on my hand was funny and I couldn't stop laughing at how quickly she would shove the food down her mouth. We then smashed up some giant vines which is the shampoo for the elephants. We used a very heavy sludge hammer. We then went and got in the water and scrubbed her down. The Australian girl and myself were the most enthusiastic and had a blast. We climbed on her back scrubbed her head, neck and I made sure to get behind her ears! This was definitely one of the coolest things I've ever done. We finished off the day with a bamboo raft floating down the river. It was very relaxed and soon went home.

This was an unforgettable first trek in SE Asia and I cannot wait until the next!