What 1000 Thai Baht gets you on an excursion...

Yesterday was our day long excursion that we booked in Chiang Mai. Billy said he wanted an excursion with an element of danger and a slim possibility of death. Well he got it. Our day started late (Thai time), and we got into a normally 7 person van. We picked up others along the way and at their tour office, we actually loaded up 13 tour-paying foreigners (french, german and us) into the van not including the tour guide and driver in the front.

The van has sets that fold down so you get four rows of 3 each. The van is not made for 6'7" guys like Billy though. Here's a picture of him in the front row. Luckily this was only for 30 min of the 1.5 hour trip up. We stopped by a butterfly and orchid farm first.

We then went onto the hike (about 1 hour long) that was "not steep" according to the sales office. Well if this is not steep - I think they might rate Mt. Everest as steep then. We were fine, but if I was booking this with my parents, there's no way they would have made it. Here's a no name waterfall along the way that we stopped at.

We then split up at the "village" where the germans had lunch and the frenchies and us got to ride the elephants. Well they didn't have enough elephants so two of us "got the opportunity" to ride the elephants not on the seats but on their necks. Nate and I did that. Holy cow. You can't describe the experience of feeling huge shoulder blades where they have no business touching you... The hour long elephant walk was also along the same path we trekked... Lame. Here are some pictures of the elephant ride.

Then we had lunch (which was phad thai and was the only good part). Then we got into the van and went to a "village" which was really a shopping post and not a village. Then we got into the van and went to our final death-defying white water rafting trip which was really a river float. But we waited for about 45 minutes for the second boat to arrive. The river float was a bit painful as we kept getting stuck since the water was so slow.

Anyhow we got to go home (after another van ride of 1.5 hours back to Chiang Mai). We had a great dinner, finished our final fittings for our suits. Billy and I are buying some fantastic suits - it's great to finally buy something that's fitted to you.