Trekking

 The next adventure I chose was the one day trek. For 700B it included trekking around and between 2 Karen villages (Hill Tribes), a visit to a waterfall with a hovering bamboo bar over the river, elephant riding, lunch, and bamboo rafting. I'd say for roughly $23 that's well worth it.

 The early stages of the Karens' rice paddies. They primarily harvest rice and soy after the King gave them an incentive project called the King Royal Project to get them out of the opium industry. This has saved their culture and given them education as well.

 The village of the White Karen.

 The women are very skilled at weaving. 

                                            Cute.                                 Our guide demonstrating the maiden's costume.

They are called "White" Karen because the girls wear white until they are married. After the first marriage they can never wear white again, though they can remarry multiple times with no stigma. Each girl must have a black pig to raise and then slaughter for the wedding feast to feed the village as dowry. 

Here's a young girl I bought a scarf from, notice she is married already. 

The more elaborate designs  like these can take up to 3 days to complete.

I bought one for 90B and felt guilty afterward realizing I was paying her $1 / day.

 The small footpaths we trekked between the villages have aqueducts alongside to feed the paddies.

The beautiful waterfall in between villages. Jesse, that rock in the middle of the left picture's waterfall reminds me of a place we ate lunch together while backpacking!

The hike and the waterfall were of course lovely. The jungle we trekked through was full of teak trees, orchids, butterflies, bamboo, and crazy looking bamboo bridges like this.

At the hovering bamboo bar, I got a Thai version of Cup o'Noodles that had even my lips burning. Lunch was the classic tourist fare that Thais think will be safe for us all: Rice, red broth with potatoes and maybe 2 slivers of chicken floating in it, and vegetables with sauce. Whenever you order meat in a dish here, prepare to look for it. It's gonna be skimpy. The first thing I'm doing when I get to NZ is eating a huge bloody steak.

After lunch we went elephant riding. Two of us shared the top seat on each one. I got the biggest male of the group and shared him with a guy traveling from Amsterdam. It was fun... but let me tell you something. Elephant riding is a workout. Every step this Goliath took had us swaying side to side AND back and forth, and there's no seat belts or handle bars on this baby.

The driver just sat right on his head with his legs dangling down in it's face like no biggy.

It looked much easier to balance there too because the elephant balances his head for his vision anyway.

Myself and the Amsterdam Fellow.

Who can resist feeding elephants?

OK, to be fair the baby got most of the bananas out of the whole herd.

Our next activity was bamboo rafting.

On the raft there was one guide in front and 4 passengers behind. Immediately as we boarded the raft and pushed off from land my spirit began to soar and I felt the most at home as I have since arriving in Thailand. Every summer I spend all my time with  my loved ones on the pristine rivers of Humboldt County and it felt just like it. The guide pushes the raft along like a gondola with a thin bamboo staff. His skill was incredible. The length of the raft and some of the obstacles we came against provided a huge challenge, and he sailed through rapids and tight turns and squeezes with aplomb.

At one point the guide handed me the pole... I was leading the whole raft! Thanks to Jon's kayak training I did alright reading the timing of the water and the rafts needs, but I eventually lost control when I couldn't find a hold for the pole in deep water. What a blast! Our raft group was so fun. We spent the majority of the time standing and balancing the rapids. I felt freer and happier than I have in a while. I felt home. I was even able to jump off and swim alongside the raft for a while. Everyone else was whining about the water temperature but I'm from Humboldt, YO!

This picture is super terrible quality because it's a photo of a photo, but you get the idea.