An Afternoon Hike

Thailand, North of Chang Mai
Today, I hiked through a lush, dense jungle-like forest down an overgrown, little-used path beside a small river to a beautiful waterfall. The small river (or large stream) runs through the resort area where we are running camp. The name of the resort is Baan Klan Doi, which means House in The Center of The Mountains. That’s what it is; we are in the mountains, beautiful mountains covered with trees, vines, and dense undergrowth. There are springs up higher (I hear rumor of some caves) and cliff faces peaking out of the trees at the higher elevations. The earth is very red, clay and soft. Because of this, the water in the river is murky and milky, slightly red, almost brown. After spending so much time in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, which are rich with granite and crystal clear water, this stream looked like sewer water. The waterfall was beautiful, but I was distrustful of touching it. I initially wanted to jump into it like I jumped into Mist Falls on the King’s River two months ago. –I asked the local, Chum Li, who had brought me to this trail if the water was safe. He told me that there probably was sewer in it, since there were many people living in remote locations up stream, and that there might be chemicals from crops grown on the mountainside. He recommended not putting my head under the water. Since I didn’t have any open cuts on my legs, I felt it would be okay to walk through the water. There’s no such thing as Hookworm in Thailand, right?
We walked farther down stream until the trail split. Ryan and I took the path that led down closer to the water, while Chum Li and Matt continued on the upper path, agreeing to meet back up where the trail met the water again (at least, according to Chum Li).
Ryan and I soon lost all signs of the trail, perhaps it was just badly overgrown, but we didn’t let that stop us as we pushed through vines, bamboo, and trees along the edge of the water. Sometimes we walked in the water, climbing down the rocks when there were waterfalls and crossing, as we needed when the sides had no room to walk because of the dense growth or slippery rocks. I had been told that there were no poisonous plants, so I had a certain level of confidence; I just had to avoid the thorns and push back the rising fear of snakes and spiders, both of which are very poisonous in this area of the world. We never found any snakes, but I had to brush off spiders from my body every so often and avoid as many webs as I could.
Soon we realized that Chum Li and Matt were nowhere to be found along the stream. I didn’t feel lost, because we were only a mile or two down stream from where we started. Though I was afraid because we had lost them. We started yelling, but couldn’t hear any response. Our voices were swallowed up by the sound of the waterfalls crashing upon the rocks. So, we headed back upstream, trying to take every possible notion of a side trail that might lead up the canyon side towards the other trail. This just brought more confusion in the dense jungle-like growth.
Finally, we found the higher trail and followed it a bit before deciding that we weren’t going to find them. One of them was a local, so I wasn’t worried that they might not find their way back. So, we returned to the camp. There they were, waiting for us when we got back. I guess they weren’t as adventurous and had turned around when the trail got tight.
Something must have bitten me, because my feet itched for about an hour after I got back.