We woke up in the morning highly motivated, ate breakfast and waited for our ride for the trek. After a delay of 30 minutes the taxi driver from the day before came by to let us know there will be another delay. Eventually, we left after an hour, a group of 13 people in a car suited for 10 at the most: the four of us, Argentinean French couple, American French couple, an American girl, and four British guys (Julie's first lie, start counting..). We later found out that six of the other group members were leaving on the second day.
We began the trip in a dirty market where they bought lunch for us, and suggested we should buy drinking water (which were not included in the trek's cost).
Of course that as soon as we got off the car a group of old women jumped at us and tried to sell us bracelets. They found the nest target - Aviv - and didn't let go of him even after he bought bracelets from them. We also bought 6 1.5 liter water bottles because it seemed reasonable for 3 people for 3 days.
We then headed for the starting point of the trek - a 3/4 hour elephant riding (Julie promised us two hours - lie no.2). Oren and Einav rode the biggest elephant in the herd, while Aviv and Tomer rode the elephant that walked behind them. Telling the truth, this was the most miserable part of the trek. We didn't imagine the abuse the elephants go through, wearing heavy rusty metal chains, and a bug metal sit on their backs which was tied under their tails. Whenever an elephant tried to walk aside the Thai "leader" ran to it and poke it in its leg. In the herd there was also a young baby elephant, which ran to play in the mud. The elephant Oren and Einav rode, got jealous, went to the mud puddle, filled its trunk with mud and missed Oren and Einav by a few inches....
Riding the elephants wasn't comfortable, when we couldn't lean back due to the metal bar in the back of the sit, and on the same time it felt wrong to step on the poor elephant's head so we sat with our legs "in the air". Tomer, who rode the elephant nearby, took a photo that is worth a thousand words.
After riding the elephants we started a 3 hours walk towards the village we were supposed to spend the night in. The course, if you can call it this way, was all 90 degrees slope, jumping from one side of the stream to the other from time to time. Half the way Einav collapsed (since the bag on her backpack weighted 10% of her body weight) and Oren and Tomer began carrying her backpack also whenever the slope was to rough. We also found out that the Argentinean Freanch couple didn't bother to bring water so we volunteered them a bottle of water pretty happily since it meant less weight for us. During the whole course our guide - Oily - was dragging after the group which was following a very young guy wearing flip flops.
We eventually got to a small neglected village on the top of the mountain. We were surprised to see that they were selling there coke, water and beer. It was a delight to find out we carried on our backs 4 kg of excessive weight...
Other than eating dinner there were not any activities as promised to us by Julie, and the only villagers that came to our bungalow were two very old women who gave a massage to those who were willing to take the risk (and pay them). Later, the British guys started partying, and drank beer non-stop. Around 3 am when we were trying to sleep we heard Oily explaining them that they were out of beer in the village and that she had sent a boy on a scooter to bring more supplies from a nearby village...
We woke up relatively late (a little after 09:00) and after a breakfast which took us an hour we headed towards the next village. This time we followed another young guy, that Oily told us later was deaf. On the exit from the village a surprise - another 90 degrees slope up the mountain.
We guess that Oily also got a little tired, because after a while she approved the young guy to take shortcuts through the forest in paths he knew. Five minutes later, we found ourselves walking in the forest following the guy creating new paths with his machete, and we started missing the known trail up hill. About an hour later, or a little longer, we came to a neglected dirty village which as full of garbage and mud and we stopped there for lunch and a rest of two hours (what a waste of time).
Later we walked to a tiny village - a few bamboo hats near a waterfall - in which we spent the night.
We sat by the table eating popcorn from two big bowls and listened to Oily's stories about her training as a guide. Even though we thought Oily wasn't a real guide, it turned out that she was a little "Rambo" - she studied about the jungle, animals and plants for a year, and in the end of that year she had a test: survive a week in the jungle having only a knife and a lighter while completing a difficult course.
After a short breakfast we continued our trek. The first stop was another waterfall where we were supposed to swim, but we gave up like a group of old people, when we heard there still had another 1.5 hours of walking in the forest until our next stop.
On our way to the next stop, we passed by a beautiful village, which was surrounded with a fence and full of flowers and trees, which made us think it was a resort and not an ordinary village. It appears that even the simple villagers can live in more decent conditions if they wish (from a "western" perspective).
Our next stop was for white water rafting and sailing on bamboo rafts. The white water rafting was disappointing since the water flow was even slower that the one in the Jordan river in the middle of the summer. The bamboo rafts were also a disappointment and some of the rafts even got stuck on the rivers bottom during the sail (because the water was so shallow).
Of course the trek's organizers couldn't be blamed for the river's condition, but if Julie had been fair to us, she wouldn't have shown us pictures of the river in its best conditions when she new it wasn't like that.
After lunch we headed back to Chiang Mai. On the way back, while we were talking to our trek companions, and comparing Julie's lies, we found out an interesting fact: from the American girls Julie took only 1700 bahts and added a free night in her guest house, and she charged the Argentinean French couple for 1500 bahts each (a reminder - we paid 1800 bahts each). It is needless to say, that it only emphasized our disappointments from the trek. When we returned to the "Lanna House" guest house Julie wasn't there and we decided to go there again in the next day in order to talk to her. When we came to "Lanna House" on the following day, Julie transformed to a very aggressive woman. She blamed Oily for everything that went wrong, and when we told her that we knew she over charged us for the trek comparing to the other tourists she started shouting and ran all over the place trying to find them.
We realized that there was no point in arguing with Julie, and left her with our money and our "blessings"...
To sum up the trek:
The trek that Julie offers looks like a shiny package which contains everything - a fun trip in nature, two kinds of rafting, activities after the walking hours, and more. In reality, however, it was a trek that we were happier to replace with another trek. Even for young guys like us, which are in a good shape, the walking wasn't fun at all, not to mention that it was really short (going for a trek and then walk for only 3 hours a day, is a waste of time). There were no activities in the villages from the moment we got there until the moment we left, and the rafting was very disappointing. Other than that, the trek was roughly 50% more expensive than other similar treks you can find in Chiang Mai, and there was no justification for that.
Our recommendation: Don't go to treks offered in "Lanna House" if you have other choice. (And in Chiang Mai you have plenty).
When we returned to Chiang Mai after the trek, we found out that there were no available rooms in the "Safe House Court", and after searching for an hour we found rooms in a guest house called "Kavil" which was a nice place with "homely" atmosphere, a small lobby with TV, and clean rooms. (400 bahts for a triple room air conditioning).