Lastly, we took a bamboo raft ride down the Wang (I think) River. It was quite the experience. It is kind of like riding in a gondola in Italy, but you get wet. There is a guy in the front with a pole, seats for two (two bamboo sticks strapped on with rubber, I think, made from bicycle tires), and a tour group member gets to stand up and guide the boat from the back (Pat and Ed did this). I didn't see it because my boat was up the river, but Ed lost his footing and ended up completely underwater. He must have fallen in the only deep part of the river, as most of the time it was only 2 feet deep.

We arrived at the hotel about 2 hours later (roughly 5:30pm), all in various degrees of wetness. I took a "hot" shower and headed to dinner. Have I mention that the hot water is really water just warm enough not to be freezing in the shower? You don't even mix cold water in. Just turn the hot water knob to full blast.

Dinner was only okay, except this place (3 N's is the name, or something like that) has really good spring rolls. I don't even like them usually, but they were good. Pat and Ed have been raving about them since they ate lunch there a few days ago.

Did I tell you Pat lost his wallet? It fell out of his pocket in the tour van. Mom saw it but thought Pat put it there on purpose (I’m not sure what she was thinking). We called the tour company, and they looked and came back with the bus but no wallet. It is very possible that they took it and lied. There's no way to know.

The day started at 7:50am. We jumped (well, not that enthusiastically) out of bed, showered, and ordered breakfast. The trek van came before we could eat it, so I had to settle for two pieces of dry, cold toast on the go. We were joined by two other couples, one from Belgium and one from Italy.

The first stop was a 30-minute walk up to a Hmong mountain village. I thought, 30 minutes, no problem. They didn't mention 30 minutes at about a 30- to 35-degree incline. I haven't had that much strenuous exercise in a long time. The village was nothing special, some huts you would never want to live in and some old ladies selling stuff, all of which you can get at any given night market. The walk and the scenery were great, though.

Next, we took an elephant ride. That was really cool. They were huge, full grown and bigger than the ones at the elephant school. One of them had a baby with her that was 3 years old. You have to be careful. The little one isn't trained yet and has lots of youthful energy. (S)He will knock you over or step on you because he doesn't know not to yet. Words of warning - The elephants snort liquid and gook out of their trunk to cool themselves down, so you pretty much get sneezed on every few minutes. Yuck! But, otherwise, they are amazing to ride on. They are very strong and very tall. I am glad we saw the ones at the school first, because I ever would have seen their real intelligence from our hour-long ride. We got off, fed them bananas, and were off again.

See Trekking in Chiang Mai - Part 2 for the rest of the day