Hill tribes, elaphants and bamboo rafts

worldtrip_20070627_0245.JPG, originally uploaded by mark benger.

Its been raining heavily here in northern Thailand almost constantly since last night, so obviously today was a good day to take a hike into the mountains & ride an elephant – not.

It was dry for the initial hike up to the Mieu village, and only rained whilst we were there, so some pictures will hopefully be on Flickr soon. However as we reached the elephants, the heavens opened, so it was a slightly damp ride through the jungle, with the elephant’s knee deep in mud, and that’s deep mud. After a quick lunch it was time to visit the Karen village, where the rain held off, before heading to see a waterfall once the rain resumed. I’m not sure which got me wetter, the rain or the spray from the falls, sadly no pictures since I didn’t want to get the SLR wet, and I’d left the waterproof camera behind.
Just in case I wasn’t wet enough, there was also the small matter of a ride down river on a bamboo raft – a contraption that barely floated.

Overall I’ve had a bit of a damp day – at least tomorrow I fly off to the beach, here’s hoping that its dry.