Bamboo rafts and crickets...

Hello again everyone! I've been completely off the map for the past few days cos I've been on
a 3 day/2 night trek somewhere near Chiang Mai (I don't actually know where we were but it took us 2 hours to drive there). I doubt it's too isolated cos every spot bar one that we went to was accessible by foot or motorbike.
So anyway I decided I'd try a few local delicacies along the way. Dragon fruit (a dayglo pink and orange fruit, the size of a pineapple with white flesh and black pips, v nice, like a kiwi), and some bugs!!!!! That's right I ate huge crickets and some worm thingys, all deep fried, and not bad actually if you don't think about what you're eating... Kinda like a slightly unusual tasting fried chicken... I also tried cooked bee larvae, which apparently most people chew and spit out (at least that's what they told me after I swallowed it!!) because my tongue and throat were a bit tingly for a few minutes. Mmmm. I still have yet to try the dried squid on a stick, it's important to always have something to look forward to!
The trekking was fairly easy but the heat was incredible, walking even 100m with a backpack is a struggle let alone walking for hours, phew!! Still, we had a great gang for the few days, 3 Kiwis, 2 Canadians and an English guy. The treks included a tribal village aspect which though informative (our guide was great) I felt the whole thing was very fake and I was a bit uncomfortable with the way the villagers did "traditional" things and wore "traditional" clothes just because we were there... The first day when we arrived near the start of the jungle path and stopped for lunch the villagers surrounded our table waiting like vultures to sell us stuff. The second morning we awoke to find the villagers had set up stalls around our hut to sell a few genuinely nice "local" items and a pile of tourist crap!!!! Now I say "local" because a few of the items were noted to have come out of plastic wrappers.... So they just sat around us while we ate breakfast and shouted at us to buy stuff. This I had not expected to be part of our trek. I also don't think this is a very dignified way to live, with the benefit of hindsight I wouldn't be reccommending a trek like this to anyone.
The other big shock to the system was an elephant ride. Everything seemed fine until we were half way through it and the elephant went to chew some bamboo. The trainer started to wallop him with a chain and was being really rough with the elephant. At this point we were feeling a bit sick to our stomachs about the whole thing and I will never ride an elephant again!!!!
DON'T RIDE ELEPHANTS!!!!
Still, the trekking was loads of fun. We saw a snake and lizards, had a shower in a waterfall, ate absolutely amazing Thai food, sang songs, had a campfire and listened to some kids sing Kumbyaa, seriously! And on the last day we rafted down a river on bamboo rafts, which incidentally nearly didn't make it cos ours got stuck in some rapids and started to come apart while we tried to free it... Excellent!!! Back in Chiang Mai now after my first proper wash in 3 days, ahhh!!! :-) So hope everyone is well. I'm off for a beer, chicken on a stick if I can find some and a bit of a rest. Cu soon......