Welcome to the Jungle

(Wednesday) Our guest house in Umphang is in the jungle. There are four of us to a room, and I am with Anna, Anastasia and Isabel. Our shower has hot water but just a couple drips flow out to bathe. The toilet and the shower are both in one room. We have a western toilet. Yay! We all froze throughout the night. Although the temperature normally drops at night in Thailand, we will need thermals for camping because the difference is a bit extreme in the jungle.
In the morning we woke up to the sounds of the monkeys and then Karen music playing throughout. I was hoping to catch a sunrise, but it was so foggy you couldn't even see the silhouette of the mountains. Hillary bought ridiculous short to trek in. She told us which store sold them and encouraged all of us to purchase some. The four of us decided to follow her footsteps.

Our ridiculous trekking outfits

Hilllary also suggested we see who gets the stinkiest after our trekking, but I'm pretty sure we all tied!
(Later) Wow! What a day!!! I'm absolutely exhausted and hardly have the energy to write. We all had breakfast together on the porch. Afterwards we headed to the river to raft to our trekking site.

Waiting for our rafts

Super Fab Outfit!!

The river flows through the jungle. The water levels are very low right now since it is dry season. It took us nearly five hours to get to the trekking site.I didn't mind the leisurely ride though. It was, as you guessed, beautiful. (These flies will be the end of my sanity)!! On the river we floated across this one cave where we saw a dozen rainbows. It was such a neat experience.

A fraction of the rainbows

 Simple joys create large impacts. The sun was shining, and we relaxed and played word games on our float. I feel so good right now, I don't even want to write, but I will. The river was home to many animals. Along the ride we saw cows, turtles, birds, snakes and gibbons! What a sight to enjoy.

Some of the group



Hi!

The lush green jungle was so beautiful and relaxing on the river. I almost didn't want to get off the raft. I could have floated until sunset. When we arrived at our trekking site, we switched our shoes and began upwards, literally!!!

The beginning

The first hour stretch was extremely rough. It was uphill the entire time. They don't believe in switchbacks either. That would have made the trek a bit easier. The sun was raising our temperature as the incline was accelerating our heart rate. The day packs didn't help either. Where was my strong lacrosse player to help me carry it to camp? JUST KIDDING! Of course that is all part of the experience. I loved every minute of it, and so did my butt :) I could definitely feel the burn. Chiara and I hiked together. We were each other's cheerleaders.
The trek took us about three hours which is shorter than expected. It was hard to start trekking after a relaxing float. On the trek we took a few short breaks to regroup, drink and go to the bathroom if needed. At our first stop, I was swarmed by bees. I'm not talking your ordinary bees; these bees were sweat bees. Sweat bees?!?! Really? I've just sweat and worked really hard and wanted a small break and drink of water, and instead I'm surrounded by bees. I tried to go around a rock to go to the bathroom and just as I pulled my trousers down there was another bee! This is not supposed to be a game of hide and seek. Fortunately no stings. I've only been stung once when I was in Cyprus, and my Yiayia poured vinegar on it. Ouch!
We arrived at camp and everyone was overwhelmed with excitement. WE grabbed our sarrongs and headed for the river to bathe! It's been an intense day. My body is tired and my mind is exhausted. Chiara and I also decided to room together tonight. Every night we are to switch roommates in order to break barriers and create friendships with everyone in the group. We had seven tents to sleep in tonight.

We took the 2nd on the left

Our Bamboo cups our guides made