It definitely pays to shop around for your hill tribe trek in Chiang Mai. Steph and I enquired about it in Bangkok and agencies there were giving us much higher quotes than what we expected. We decided to book when we got to Chiang Mai. Booking was easy, there are loads of agencies. It turned out the guy who was selling us our tour spoke Lao so I spoke to him in Lao and with that and my broken Thai, he ended giving us a great deal on our trek – only 1000 baht for the 2 night, 3 day tour which included everything.

The driver picked us up and we were introduced to the rest of the group. There were 9 of us all together, all from different parts of the world. We also met our two guides – Boh and Bee. I was very surprised at how organised everything was. Our first stop was the police station where we had to register our passports "just in case". Next it was off to get some morning tea at a small market. We stocked up on water here and some snacks for the trip. It definitely pays to be Asian here, you don’t get ripped off! Even buying water, they would charge me 5 baht and Steph got charged 20 baht for the same 1Lt bottle of water! We headed to the national park. On the way we stopped at this beautiful waterfall and cooled off in the water. The first day consisted of only 2-3 hours of walking to the Karen Village where we stayed for the night, it’s the largest hill tribe village here. The walk there was stunning, walking through rice fields and forest. When we arrived in the village, we were greeted by locals all dressed up in their traditional costumes, trying to sell us some hill tribe souvenirs. First, it was cute and then it just got annoying. They didn’t leave us alone. Even when we all sat around the table together, the little girls would all sit in a line holding some the goods they wanted to sell. We stayed in a wooden hut all in one room. After having a great meal cooked by our guides, we huddled around the bonfire and say songs all night.

The next day we were on to another village, this was a lot harder. We did over 4 hours of walking and it was quite tough on the legs for most people. There was a bit of scrambling but again, we walked through more beautiful rice fields and saw more waterfalls. This village was small, had no electricity at all but we got to sleep in bungalows in proper beds this time which was much better than the hut. We even go to have a shower! That night was spent playing card games and dancing on the tables.

The next day we were on the way back to the city, we stopped for some bamboo rafting and went riding on elephants! This was great fun. We bought some bananas to feed the elephants during our elephant ride. At times, the elephant would stop and would not move until we gave it more bananas. Who says animals aren’t intelligent!

Hill tribe trekking in Chiang Mai is an experience I would definitely recommend. There are so many walks to choose from. Not only has it given me an appreciation for life of the hill tribe villages and villagers, it also made me appreciate how lucky we are! It is very rewarding.