Monday: "This sucks... but it's kinda fun.": Team Sassy

Sometimes I start to feel really mundane. Then I trek 10km... up a mountain... through the jungle... in the rain... with a sprained ankle.

And it was absolutely miserable.

Our trek involved hiking 10km, almost all straight uphill, through the jungle hills of northern Thailand to visit some remote hill tribe villages. One day up, one night at an outpost at the top, and one half day down. The drive out to the trail head for some reason reminded me of Forrest Gump in Vietnam, which then reminded us of Forrest's description of monsoon rain (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2ihL_FrFPs). That pretty much sums up our time at the wall in the rain. And some of the trek.

To start, I stayed in the back with the self proclaimed slow group (which we named Team Sassy) comprised of 5 or 6 non-hiking ladies like myself. Though I would argue my taking it easy was more a product of my hurt ankle. This was probably the worst thing one could do to a sprained ankle. I taped it to oblivion and wore good stiff shoes, but every time my ankle bent in the direction it rolled, like on a rock, it hurt like crazy. What made it even worse was the slippery mud we encountered about half way in. I'm pretty sure I only fell on my butt once. At first the hike with Team Sassy was kind of fun and funny. As Tegan so aptly put it "This sucks...... but it's kinda fun." Shortly thereafter one girl fell in the mud, and the girl behind her laughed so hard she peed herself. No joke. Or as the Brits call it, she "wee'd." We were taking our time at the back, taking lots of pictures and falling all over ourselves as it slowly started to rain harder and the path started to get more and more slippery. Then I fell, and instead of laughing everyone behind me just went quiet. That was the point in the hike when falling went from being hilarious to sucking.

Minus the rain it would have been an amazing hike; super tough with all the steep hills but the views were incredible. We didn't get to see much of them though as we walked the whole way looking down to be sure of our footing. By 10km and probably 5 hours of this we were wet, muddy, and miserable. So miserable. We were so grateful to reach the outpost even though it was about as rustic as it gets.

The place was raised on stilts and seemingly built entirely of bamboo. The floors, for example, were bamboo beams covered with flattened bamboo slats. We were all convinced that at least one of us was going to break through the floor that night. And every time you stepped the bamboo boards would give significantly or shift so it probably seemed more treacherous than it was. Otherwise it was bare minimum, no hot water, no electricity, not even full walls. Basically camping.

However there were 2 kittens and a couple cats running around the place that kept me entertained. We ate dinner of mashed potatoes and grilled chicken and Claudia and I fed our scraps to the cats at our feet. Then we all gathered around a fire and chatted on the floor until eventually everyone passed out from exhaustion around 930. I found out once we moved to our beds that the floor mats were significantly more comfortable than the beds. And even though I'm proud of myself for making it through and not complaining all that much at the time, basically we were hating life for the day.

The awesome floor cushions and drying our shoes by the fire