Fresh waterfalls along the way which we had to climb across man made bamboo bridges in order to be able to take a very refreshing and much needed dip half way through our hike.

Luscious hiking trails

I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an abundance of bamboo! We were walking in amongst that many bamboo trees of all different shapes, sizes and angles. Bamboo swings, bridges and archways galore!

Canopies…

Within a group of 6 French, 3 polish, 2 italians, myself and the Thai tour guide, I definitely was feeling the odd one out. Though most of them knew basic English, for the better part of it they spoke in their mother language. I love hearing other people talk other languages though, but 4 at the same time and no English was a little difficult!

Banana trees lined the sides of the trails from which wild bananas grew (I didn’t know there was another type?). The bottom picture clearly shows my inability to focus my camera one handed but here is a cross-sectional view of what a wild banana looks like…you definitely cannot eat these!

Hiking into the Thai “jungle”

So back to Chiang Mai I headed for a quick change over (I literally booked this trek at 8:30pm and was set to leave 12 hours later). First we headed for a lunch stop in amongst the rice fields, thai style on bamboo mats and cross legged with a plate of delicious Pad Thai.

There was a second, smaller white temple being built whilst we were there and it was amazing to see all the Thai men at work carving and mosaic-ing all the detailing and just trying to fathom how long not only the structural side of these temples take, but the finer designing details.