Dan's Adventure

As soon as I crossed the border into Thailand from Laos I jumped into a tuk tuk and then a bus to Chiang Rai. Like Udomxai in Laos, I had heard that it was one of the best places to go trekking in northern Thailand. After a few hours walking around the tour agencies in Chiang Rai my hopes had been dashed and I was already planning an early start the following morning to go to Chiang Mai. Every tour agency in Chiang Rai offers treks lasting from 1 to 3 days, the problem however is that most people opt for the 1 day options which means that unless you turn up with a group wanting to go on a 3 day trek there is no chance of it happening. I was staying at the Akha River House which has a good reputation for treks in the area, unfortunately the best they could do was tell me that there might be a trek in a few days. I didn’t want to hang about on the off chance.

It seems that everyone goes trekking from Chiang Mai. Trekking however is used in the loosest possible sense here as there really isn’t much involved at all even on the 3 day treks. I signed up to one regardless as I didn’t want to risk the same fate as in Chiang Rai in Pai so after an afternoon discovering that every company offered the exact same thing I signed up via the guesthouse I was staying at.

The first day started with an elephant ride and continued after lunch with a long up hill walk to the village we would be staying at that evening. That night the village would host five trekking groups including ours. At each “rest stop” there was a stall selling drinks and snacks and at least one other group taking a break at the same time. The scenery was stunning but the experience was such a contrast to the trek I went on in northern Laos, very touristy.

Day two took us to a waterfall where we swam and killed a few hours over lunch and day three saw us white water rafting on some very small rapids followed by bamboo rafting to our pickup spot. In total I doubt we walked for more than 8 hours over the three days.

Despite being disappointed by the itinerary of the trek as I had been led to believe that there would be a lot more walking involved, I still had a great time. The group I was with were awesome and our guide was a real character. Magic tricks, games and beers were the way the evenings went. I’m just going to have to wait until I get to Khao Sok national park for my Thai trekking.