Chiang Rai Hill Trek Day 3: Waterfall and on to Chiang Khong

We woke up in the garden shed feeling a little itchy and extremely sleepy. Leon informed me that he had about 2 hours sleep, as he kept feeling himself getting bitten throughout the night. I went straight to the shower and despite it being cold, I was happy to be clean once again! We had another breakfast of rice, fish, vegetables and omelette, packed out things and said farewell to Aunty Anne, who I was actually growing very fond of. We left the Akha village and headed for another village which was again a really good walk, with amazing views of the forest and not much else, although we did start walking on roads as opposed to jungle trails. We made it the other village where we sat and watched a presentation on the villages in the surrounding area, and were surprised to see that all seven of them were pretty close together but didn't mingle at all.

Afterwards, we again learned more about the tribes and their way of life in the Hilltribe Museum. After this brief bit of education, Leon, Jahe and I walked up to the final part of our trek, which was the waterfall. I wasn't expecting the waterfall to be that forceful but it was really powerful and extremely cold to swim in! Leon let me try out the water first (what a gentleman) and after I gave him the thumbs up, we both set about swimming and walking around in the waterfall, which we had all to ourselves. Jahe made like a cat and slept in the sunshine while we swam, and once we were suitably chilly enough, we decided to follow suit and laid out on the rocks and soaked up some sun. The appetites kicked in and Jahe handed over our lunches to us which consisted of chicken, rice and vegetables wrapped in a banana leaf. The meat looked very tough and dubious so Leon and I tried to politely poke at it for a while and stuck to the rice and veg. It wasn't anything to write home about but it did the trick. After 3 hours of waterfall and sunbathing, we made our way back to the previous village to wait for our pick up truck to take us back to Chiang Rai. All in all we had a fun and memorable time trekking, and when we said bye to Jahe back at our guesthouse, Leon and I felt like we were saying goodbye to a family member that we were just getting to know. As someone once said, travelling is the saddest of all pleasures and I think we both understood the meaning of that when we waved goodbye to the lovely Jahe.
However, we quickly had to put our sadness aside and get back into the swing of things as we had a bus to catch to Chiang Khong. After a swift change of clothes, a few minutes on the internet and with the help of the lady who ran our guesthouse, we had booked a room in Chiang Khong for the night and needed to get the last bus there!
The tuk tuk arrived and whisked us off to the bus station in good time. A few days before hand we had spoken to a very kind lady who worked there who informed us that we had until 5pm to get the last bus. We were looking around for her in the station and then I heard someone say 'here, here Chiang Khong bus!'. We looked up at the buses and she was there, waving at us with a beaming smile on her face. I couldn't believe she had remembered us! We were the last ones on the bus and literally left a minute after we got on it. Sometimes the timing works out perfectly, and in this instance it really had.
Now usually I wouldn't describe a bus but this local bus is worth talking about. It was probably about 30 years old, with actually desk fans hooked up to the ceiling, and bright red seats that were designed to fit on 3 people on each. The floor of the bus was wooden and held together by a couple of rusty nails, and the interior was green, yellow and red, which made it look like a Jamaican party bus! Bizarrely, the bus also had a flat screen 21 inch plasma TV, and halfway through the journey the driver thought it would be fun to stick on some Thai Karaoke music videos. I lost count but I think I watched 10 or 12 of those in a row, and every single one had the same theme... guy cheats on girlfriend, girlfriend is very upset when she sees him with another girl, guy apologizes but doesn't look like he cares that he has been caught, girlfriend hands him back a heart shaped locket on a necklace. After 5 hours on this bus, we finally made it to Chiang Khong in the early evening.