One of the most anticipated events of our trip was our jungle trek. We spent countless hours discussing the pros and cons of different tour companies, different jungle locations, and various amounts of time. The short version:Burr: Do we really need a tour guide? I'm just going into the jungle and we'll find the villages on my own.
Vas: Do we actually have to go on a trek? Can't we just rent a movie and stay at the guest house and do laundry. I saw a good pizza place down the street. Where are my tums?
In the end, taking the advice of our waterfall "Peak Adventure Guides" we decided to embark on a two day, one night, Peak Adventure Tour. The company picked us up at our guest house at 8:30 am and drove us to their corporate headquarters. It was then that we met our tour guides, our new lifelong friends, who lead us through the hills and mountains of Thailand, M and Pipe.
At Peak headquarters we met a few of our travel companions and signed our liability waiver. In case of death or dismemberment our heirs would receive 6000 baht less than $200.
From there, 12 people started our journey together. 4 were on a one day trek and 4 others with us 4 were planning on sticking around for two days. A big shout out goes to Wanda aka Prada who unfortunately didn't it make it all the way with us. Her large size prada bag was too much to lug through the jungle (although Vas did enjoy talking about the re-burgeoning IPO market for VC portfolio companies to her HBS grad boyfriend). The first, but certainly not last tear was shed by Vas when they slowly departed in a peak van.
Our trek started at an elephant camp. Vas and I paired up as did Burr and Anthony to ride the elephants. We weren't expecting much, but it was significantly more exciting than we thought. We bought some bananas and sugar cane to feed the beasts whose back's we were on, in hopes that this would stop them from bucking us off. A huge shout out goes to our driver. Only he knew that the fastest way to calm TitTat (our elephant) was to put his cell phone in TT's ear and play a Kanye ring tone. I guess even elephants want part of the goodlife.
After the elephant ride M and Pipe led the four of us into the Thai jungle. We anticipated a four hour hike, so Ant and I were prepared with our Merrill Moab Gortex. What we were not prepared for was a four hour hike, almost completely uphill, in the pouring rain. We were soaked from head to toe, covered in mud, and out of breath for four hours long. Vas was quick to make jokes about our matching shoes, but his Air Force Ones (which led him to many championships on the hoop court) let him down in the jungle. He spent more time crawling through the mud than walking.
We finally made it to the Karen village where we were to spend the night. M and Pipe showed us to our room at the hut in the village. It was slightly more austere then we had first imagined. M and a local villager cooked us our first dinner in the jungle, which was surprisingly one of our best meals so far. It consisted of chicken and mushroom soup in a creamy coconut milk broth, sweet and sour vegetables, glass noodles with bamboo shoots, and ended with a fresh cut mango.
Although it was very tasty, I was hesitant to eat much after seeing our sous chef --pipe pouring water out of a oil can to cook and wash his knife with. Following dinner we walked around in an attempt to meet some of the villagers. It was quite an eye opening experience. Families lived in one room huts without running water or electricity. They typically had a cow or pig tied to the post of their houses. We didn't get to speak to many of the villagers, but did use our knew Karen word -- dubli -- meaning hello and thank you. Anthony was able to give a high five to one of the young boys kicking a soccer ball
Once we got back to our hut we saw a different side of our tour guides. Pipe and a local villager Patti turned into quite the sommeliers for the evening. For some reason we couldn't get a cold bottle of water the entire trip, but they seemed to pull an endless supply of ice cold homemade rice whiskey from the middle of the jungle. Although I have been to a fine wine pairing class, I did not know that rice whiskey would go so well with bamboo shoots.
After many rounds of rice whiskey our tour guides began to open up. Pipe who barely spoke english began to tell stories and teach us different brain teasers. The most interesting person we met though was a local villager named Patti (which is a term or respect meaning something like uncle in the local village tongue). He taught us many tricks and even gave us a home made bamboo toy. Although we had to buy him many beers from himself to learn the ancient secrets. By the end of the night he convinced us to call him Mr. Party which was seemed normal at the time even though he spoke literally no English.
Finally we all decided to retire to bed. Burr almost certainly dreaming of his new Friend Pipe the entire night. Surprisingly due to the fact that we were sleeping on rugs on wooden floors with no AC we woke very early, and before M and Pipe. The place did have a few key amenities---most importantly a built in mosquito net. At that moment Vas posed a math question for the group. Vas: I have at least 100 mosquito bites on my body. What is the probability that none of these mosquitoes had malaria?
After waking up early we met a new friend appropriately named Shiloh by Burr. He was one of the cutest puppies we have ever seen. He quickly jumped up onto us and was very playful. A quick side note -- one of the most distinctive things we have noticed in Thailand is the sheer amount of stray dogs running around. We all were warned by the able Penn Student Health Doctor not to touch any dogs due to the high probability that they would be rabid. There was no way Shiloh was rabid right?
After a quick breakfast we packed our bags and began our trek down the mountain with Shiloh at our heals. We tried to get him to stay back at his home but he refused, following us for literally 3 hours and a handful of miles. He led the way most of the trip, but we did have to help him down a ladder and across a few irrigation canals. Finally we came across another village with a dog or two. There we prepared to cross a raging river and said our goodbye to Shiloh and crossed without him. There, Burr shed the second tears of the trip. After crossing the river and climbing through a rice field or two we looked back to Shiloh standing at the rivers edge barking for us. Burr cried again and Pipe had to restrain him from running back to rescue Shiloh.Finally we were off to some white water rafting. We were reminded of the adage in broken English from our repelling the day before "If you fall you will Die." Somehow I again was paired with Vas. Luckily his paddling skills were slightly better than his non existent swimming skills. It was hard to follow instructions from our rafting guide because the only English he knew was "high five." Luckily we made it through for the final high five. We also taught him our other motto: "Vas too good for paddle," as Vas dropped his paddle during many of the rapids and he had to jump out of the raft and swim through the rapids to retrieve it.
After the rafting, we took off our helmets and vests, but the guide told us to keep them on for the ride home. Naturally I chuckled but he informed me that they were putting the rafts in a truck and we were going to sit on them, so we needed helmets in case we fell. Still thinking he was kidding, I laughed again. A few minutes later. Vas' knuckles turned white as he gripped ever so tightly on to the side of the pick up as we sped through turns---still sitting on our rafts.So this post is entirely too long. But after the trek we took a quick shower and our guides met us at our guesthouse to take us to a nearby Reggae bar. Burr had the time of his life. We carried him home. The lobby guy at our guesthouse remembered him from last night---kyle doesn't.
All in all it was a very successful trip.
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