I was picked up from VIP House in one of the red taxi trucks that I'm always seeing around the city. Inside were a physiotherapist couple from Nance in France, and everyone else that we picked up for the trek was also from France. Most of them spoke some degree of English, and I speak and understand a tiny bit of French, but it's definitely rusty.
We rode in the truck to lunch, stopping once at a market along the way. I bought a water bottle pouch from one of the hilltribe ladies there as a gift and was bugged almost constantly by one of the other hilltribe ladies there to buy any other textiles, such as bracelets, hats, or just about anything else that she had. This lady wouldn't take "no" for an answer when I told her I did not want to buy anything from her, and I eventually just had to start ignoring her. I felt really bad doing this, but nothing else worked.
We ate lunch at an elephant training camp and went for an elephant ride. Being the only traveller in our group without a companion, I was asked to sit on the elephant's neck, which wasn't the most comfortable position. I don't think I'll do any elephant ride again, though, as I didn't fully enjoy it. The trainers used physical hitting at times to control the elephants, and also used a hooked cane in their ears to steer them or get them to move. This got me feeling highly conflicted, wondering if I were supporting cruelty to these giants, but also wondering what other life there is now for elephants and their mahouts. I don't think there's any simple answers.
After this, the true trekking began with a hike up and into the hills. this hike was pretty steep, especially in the heat, but a good one, going through lychee orchards and finally into the jungle itself. Eventually, we came in sight of a great rock face with lots of route potential. Below the face turned out to be a tall, but not overly extensive cave. A bat cave, in fact, complete with a few bats, stalactites and such. We had some fun going into it, playing around with some downclimbing, and I even managed to see a few of the resident bats.
We made it to the first village in time for everyone to grab a cold shower, cooling off and cleaning off the sweat and dirt of the day. After hanging out a bit in the area of our lodgings, we had dinner and then the games began. We started playing a game of Aussie Rules Uno, which seems to have rules that were created, or at the very least released to the rest of us as the game progressed. This was easily the largest game of Uno I've ever been involved in, with 14 of us playing. Most of us gave up after a few rounds, as it was just too ungainly to follow.
I nearly passed out writing in my journal and began to wonder if my body clock was starting to reset itself again, it not yet being even 9:00pm.
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