Tourist for a day

It was suggested to me to go on a "Trek" while I was in Chiang Mai. A good idea indeed. I wasn't sure how I would do that since I had no idea about where to go, what to do or anyone to go on a trek with. But I think God had His hand in how it came about.

On Sunday I went to an international church. It was nice to hear a fully English sermon. It could have more depth than the sermons at TLC because it wasn't being translated. As soon as I walked in I was greeted by 4 other guys who (I found out later) were there for the first time as well. They were in town for a conference of Christian English teachers, of which there were over 600 people from all over Asia. After church we walked around and ate lunch together. Along the way, they were pricing out day treks, and it occurred to me that it would be cool if I went along with them. So we signed up. 700 Baht (20 bucks) bought us a trip to 2 mountain villages, a trip to a waterfall, lunch, a trip down a river on a bamboo raft, and a trip on the back of an elephant. Not bad for one day!

It is fun to be a tourist once in a while. I sometimes have this "better than you" tourist attitude because I know that I'm being catered to as a tourist. And now I think I'm better at spotting the good price and the tourist price. It was funny when I paid the van driver he told me not to tell the other people in the van how much I paid, because they had paid much more for the same tour. He he.

First stops were the hill tribe villages. Whatever those hill tribes used to do, they don't do it anymore. I think they're main source of income is tourism. But they still live in rural houses. The first village was about a 1/2 hour walk, way up into the mountains. It actually reminded me of hiking in BC in the summer. We get up there, and I'm walking around and I spot a pickup truck! I know he didn't get up there on the trail that we hiked on. That's when I realized that this village is maybe not as rural as I first thought. In any case, I enjoyed the exercise.

The waterfall was nice. The waterfall was a bit too cold for my liking. It was like visiting Cascade Falls in the summer. I think its too cold for the Thais too. But hey "bring the foreigners, they don't know the difference!" The Thai lunch was great, rice with various toppings. Then a trip down the river on a bamboo raft. The rafts were made of about 10 thick bamboo stocks, about 20 feet long. They held the raft guide at the front, 2 in the middle and someone at the back. It was mostly calm and quite relaxing. A stark contrast to the elephant ride. The elephant ride was neat, but it is very much "hold on for dear life". The two seater on top of the elephant becomes one with the elephant, so it rocks every which way. And elephants don't come with shock absorbers. A good day had by all.

Here's the God part. Unbenounced to us, the trek company has several vans, and each person is pre-assigned to a van, usually based on which hotel you're staying at. The vans are staggered so only one van is at any activity at any given time. I ended up in a van with 3 couples and one other single girl, who was also looking for her friends. At the first stop I started talking to her and found out that she was in town for the same Christian teachers conference as my friends were (from church the day before), and soon found out that her friends were the same friends I was looking for. Fortunatelly, we found the others at the first stop and they had room in their van, so we all got to enjoy the day together. It was cool to be able to hang out with a group of likeminded Christians. I will probably never see them again, but it was cool that at just the right time, God provided me some friends to go on the trek with. Thanks God.