Destination: Trekking Through Chiang Mai's Northern Hilltribes and Villages

On the second half of my Thailand adventure I embarked upon a three day long trek through northern Chiang Mai's hilltribes and villages, expertly guided by G Adventures.

The trip began in Bangkok where I met the rest of the group that I would be travelling with on this week long adventure. We started with all of the basics, running through our trip itinerary and getting together all our paper work before we went off for dinner with our native tour guide, Tom Tom. Here we learnt our first lesson - always let the Thai person choose your Thai food! Full of food and enthusiasm we then headed off to the infamous Kao San Road for some local beer and team building.

The morning after the night before we awoke not quite so fresh faced, but nonetheless ready for action! A quick tuk-tuk ride around Bangkok soon woke us up and soon we found ourselves packed up once more and ready to board the overnight train to Chiang Mai.

This was an adventure in itself! The sleeper train was clean and cosy, and the staff as friendly as ever in the Land of Smiles. We played cards, chowed down on some more yummy Thai food and fell asleep to the dulcet tones of the staff selling 'Oren juuuuuis!'. If anyone overcame their excitement for the journey ahead and actually slept, they almost certainly dreamt of what was awaiting them at the next stop.

When the day of the trek arrived, everyone was as excited as ever. The prospect of a quick dip in a waterfall en route was almost too much for us to bear! The heat was getting to us all, and the waterfall was a blissful oasis in the glaring sunshine.

Once we had dragged ourselves away from the waterfall and back into the rear of the pick-up truck, we ascended as far as we could into the hills before we had to get out and begin our trek. It was hot and humid, but the beautiful surroundings soon made us forget it. Walking through the jungle we all stopped chatting to take in as much as we could, only stopping to fully appreciate where we were and to point excitedly when we spotted a wild banana or mango.

Our guide was great. Sammy was an expert of the jungle and had the answers to all of our questions. He even got out his catapult to grab us a fresh mango from a tree and was our personal lychee picker! We trekked for two days, stopping at a village each evening to soak up the village life and eat some yummy home cooked food. The second day's trekking was definitely more challenging than the first, but we were rewarded at the end by elephants and by reaching paradise.

As if we hadn't already had the time of our lives, we were in for even more of an adventure! Our third day's mode of transport was a bamboo raft which was lovingly made for us by men from the village we stayed in the night before. We embarked upon the six hour journey in high spirits and arrived at our destination with sun burn, hunger and fantastic memories.

That evening we all slept extremely well and awoke still with the excitement of the previous days, but also with a sense of sadness that the majority of our trip was over. Nonetheless, we continued on our adventure with another day in Chiang Mai, another trip on the sleeper train and then our last day together in Bangkok. Somehow, 15 strangers from across the globe managed to become great friends in the space of a couple of days and share an experience of a lifetime, all thanks to G Adventures!