Trek Day 1

Here we are, all crammed in the back of a truck getting ready to make what we later found out was a 4 hour drive into the hills, not exactly comfortable, but very fun.
Doh cut up fresh mango for our lunch - probably the best mango I have ever had.
Katherine and I on our elephant.....I really like elephants after this experience. They just seem like happy animals.
So we set off on our elephant ride - you can see that our elephant has already figured out that we have some bananas for him, he was a hungry little guy.

Check the facial expression on Darci's elephant - so cute!
We are all out of bananas by this time, but he's still looking for hand outs
So at this point, our elephant has found something very tasty off the edge of a cliff!!!! Katherine and I are getting ready to jump. We were honestly nervous.
What an amazing view! Such a beautiful place.

We trekked through all these rice fields and since it is dry season and they have not yet planted the rice, the cows were out grazing. They had these wooden bells around their necks that sounded amazing.
We took a quick pit stop in a little village along the way.


Trekking through the hills.
Doh found a local strawberry field on the side of a steep hill and picked some for us. This must be where all the Hmong people in Visalia get all their know how on strawberries.
We took a quick stop at this little house with one farmer in it and the farmer and Doh cut down a couple of bamboo stalks and started carving us out cups....so awesome!
And very functional - we used them all during the trek.

This is the view from just outside our hut - incredible!!!

Here is Doh making dinner. He was such a great guide!
These are some of the houses in the village we stayed in that night.
This is a little old lady we saw walking along. I wish we could have caught a picture of her smiling. She had this huge, toothless genuine smile.
Here are our sleeping quarters. Bamboo mats were not exactly comfortable, but it was certainly a cool experience
Doh and some of the other villagers had made us dinner.....so amazingly yummy - Doh had picked veggies all along the trail during the day. He is from the hill tribes so it was easy for him to spot things.
The ladies in the village were selling handicrafts when we got there - we of course automatically assumed that Svenja and Mara wanted in - they were such great additions to the group.