Day 16: Hill Tribe Tour Day 2

On the second day, we woke to find that water buffalo had chosen to roam through the village. It's so strange to think that animals can go wherever they want here- I could've tried to ride one if I wanted, but they were kinda big and I was kinda preoccupied with breakfast.

After breakfast, we chose groups and headed out on our second hike. This one was a little more intense, much much shorter and the hills weren't quite as tall, which balanced the whole thing out! The hike only took about an hour and a half or so and it was a glorious sight when we finally arrived at our second Karen village! 

After arriving, half of the group left to go do elephant rides and the four of us that were left laid on the underneath porch and listened to music and just chilled for about 30 minutes- it was so relaxing! After decompressing a bit, we went up to the kitchen to help cook the lunch for everyone else! After lunch, our group headed out to do our own elephant ride!

Jenny, Emma, and I riding our elephant!

Grace and Melissa being precious

snack time!

After our elephant ride, we got to take the elephants down to the river and give them a bath. It was really cool because all of the kids from the village were there swimming in the river and ran up to help us bathe our elephants! (It was really sweet!) Halfway through the "bath" one of our guides goes "climb up the back" and so I did...

It was so scary but so fun!!! Probably one of my most treasured memories of Thailand! And when I got back from the elephant ride, it was naptime for some...

and time to play cards for others.

While we were enjoying our afternoon off, a bunch of the kids from around the village came to sell us little bracelets and trinkets and we shared snacks we'd brought with us. They were extremely sweet and the mother of the children spoke very good English! She told us that she was in her middleish 30s (I forget the number >_<) and had 7 kids. It's wild to think about a woman that age having so many kids, but then again, it probably seemed odd to her that I was (almost) 21 and didn't have any.

Summer and the kids!

We had a lovely dinner of a chicken and rice dish and FRIED BANANAS, which were AMAZING. Afterwards, we went on a tour of the village and got to meet Boon's mother and father, who were in their 80s and COMPLETELY adorable! I took pictures of them, but they turned out horrible and you can't even tell what the picture is of. But it was really cool of Boon to take us to his parents home and tell us about his life growing up. His mom told him to tell us that she wanted to go to the US but got very carsick. She was so cute I wanted to just bring her with me! She hugged all of us on our way out and I think everyone got a lot out of that experience!

We all slept together in a room similar to the previous night's and we were better prepared for the 3 am cold snap followed by the morning heat.

-Haley