Well, the tour looked pretty interesting and the price was certainly attractive. Tour northwestern Thailand, see exotic tribes, ride an elephant, take interesting nature walks, swim under a beautiful waterfall, raft down a river, all meals and lodging included, drinks extra, only 1500 baht ($45) per person for three days and two nights. All true. How can they do it so cheaply? First, the only time we rode anything motorized was the first day and the last. Except for the elephant ride of half a mile or so, the rest of the travel was by Shank's Mare (on foot). This is one of those things that is a lot more enjoyable remembering than actually doing. Now that I'm 36 hours distance from it, it's starting to look a lot better than 4 hours or so into the walk on day 2. Guess I'd better start at the beginning.
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| That's where were, I guess.The dotted line is the walking part. |
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| We went on a Trek |
We were picked up at our wonderful, luxurious, air conditioned hostel with hot and cold running water, a shower and sit-down toilet by the Panda Tour Company van, an aged Toyota with a probably colorful history. Only about a half hour late, so the organization was pretty much on its toes. Presently we picked up the other members of our group; Will and Dan, Canadians from Calgary, recent college grads off to see the world; Gil, an Israeli of Russian but really Bulgarian ancestry, IT professional and semi-pro tourist. Will and Dan would be with us for the entire ordeal and Gil had signed up for just two days and one night. North out of Chiang Mai for about an hour. Stop at a local market for the guides to stock up on supplies and our last chance for what the military calls "pogey-bait", not to mention the ever-popular bottled water. A 6-pack of liter bottles for about 75 cents. Later on, we'd have paid whatever anyone was charging. Another half hour down the road we stopped for an excellent lunch. Obviously the guides had phoned in our ETA and it was waiting for us. Now comes the promised Elephant Ride.
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What is the price of rice in a Thai country market?
.03 (Baht conversion) times 23 (rice price) = .69 per what unit of measure for rice?
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| The Whole Hog |
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| Buying a piece of a pig |
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| Just like the Farmer's Market in Royal Oak? |
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| Ordering Deep Fried Spring Rolls, Bananas and Wontons |
The elephant village is classic rural Thailand, only difference being the very tall sunshades that are the elephant barns. This village and others like it were the heavy equipment contractors of their time, which was not so very long ago. They still get jobs only elephants can do. Kicker is that it does take a village, and a very well located one, to support even a small herd. Without a lot of lush greenery and full time flowing water, it would not be a going concern. Now they do pretty well giving rides, letting tourists play with the elephants and pretty extensive vegetable and soybean farming. Everything I said about elephants in the previous post still applies, though these beasts have more of a mind of their own and see themselves as very much independent partners in the process. So long as they're pampered, given interesting things to do and are the center of attention, they're very happy people indeed. The ride itself was a gas! Nothing like swaying back and forth ten feet in the air, listening to the mahout coax a semi-recalcitrant elephant along and trying to keep its nose out of the vegetation. Just for the show of it, he took it down stream embankments and over narrow trails I would have hesitated to try on a dirt bike. Afterward, of course, there was a chance to reward the elephants with purchased sugar cane.
Many of the pictures (all the really good ones) in this story were taken by Gil Krevslavsky, a better photographer that I'll ever be. He carries a tripod and lots of lenses. I carry a cheap Kodak.
Now, how about a nice walk? Just a few hours of healthful exercise, settle the lunch, get a little fresh air? Mostly up. Okay, I grew up on a farm. I rambled all over those 80 acres without a second thought and knew neighboring farms nearly as well, not to mention running all over aunt and uncle's farms with cousins. When friends from town came to visit I would be bewildered at how after a couple of hours, they'd suggest something a bit less active. The shoe was now on the other foot. As far as our guides were concerned this was just a little walk in the woods. As far as their charges were concerned, this was a truly grueling exercise. We were taking narrow winding paths up hills 60 degrees from the horizontal, vegetation obscuring top and bottom, just trudging along. Every half hour or so, a ten minute break. I needed at least that just to catch my breath. Damn inexpensive cigarettes, anyway! This is not to say we didn't appreciate the scenery. At breaks in the jungle it was magnificent, even obscured by haze.
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| Gil with his camera and pack. |
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Daniel from Calgary. We asked if their friends were jealous.
They've already been to Asia, Will said. |
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What Gumorn does with a banana flower petal.
Here's a cabbage patch, where babies come from.
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About the haze, AKA no blue sky. We've probably mentioned before that Thailand is in a pretty severe drought. The northern tribes have used fire as a tool for thousands of years. They use it to clear land, bring down monstrous trees, keep insects out of the villages, not to mention cooking. Burned areas produce black mushrooms, a highly desired and expensive seasonal delicacy. Without occasional burning, bamboo thickets get too overgrown and clogged with oversized and dead stalks, banana trees get too tall to harvest, cobras and tigers get too close to living areas. We passed through many burned areas during our two days of walking and saw fires in the hills at night. Our guides had no comment on this, barely noticing. One thing I did notice is that despite dry conditions no burned patch was bigger than a hundred feet or so in any direction. These are not the massive wildfires that occur in our own western states. Despite a government ban on burning, it still goes on.
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| Burned area. I did not think to photograph ugly places. |
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| No blue skies here. |
Okay, off the soapbox. After our leisurely, heathy stroll in the woods (grueling, treacherous, sweaty march through trackless jungle) and a visit to a bat cave it was finally time to take a rest at the village where we'd spend the night. I think the hut we stayed in had been specifically constructed for the tourist trade though it was indistinguishable from the rest of the dwellings in the village. A cooler full of beer, coke and the obligatory bottled water appeared as if by magic, along with price list. Our guides (I forgot to mention their names, Gumarn, AKA Come on, a Thai kickboxer and Simor, AKA Simon says, a refugee from Burma - nobody here calls it Myanmar) busied themselves preparing dinner and we kicked back discussing the day and getting acquainted. I suppose there is a formal name for what they made, maybe not. Basically we had a great soup, a couple of different combinations of meat, tofu and vegetables seasoned with unidentifiable but excellent spices. Liz and I succumbed to exhaustion not long after though the younger three guys talked with Gumorn and Simor and a couple of elephant trainers for a few hours.
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| Mosquito Nets over our sleeping pads. |
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| Gumorn cooking supper the 1st night. |
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| A delicious meal |
Up with the roosters. Gumarn claims they aren't saying Cock-a-doodle-doo but Barbecue me. Good idea. Really, they're just noisiest with the dawn, they also punctuate the entire night. Just one of the standard exotic Thai sound background. One of the strangest is a cicada that is constantly sounding the first six notes of The Acrobats (the one you always hear at the circus when the acrobats come out) without ever finishing the damn thing. Breakfast is lots of toast and eggs scrambled with vegetables. Southeast Asia never has quite come to grips with the Western idea of breakfast, though Liz has found an excellent Muesli with Yoghurt available in the market. Anyway, here we go again. Gil went one way with Gamorn and Will, Dan, Liz and I followed Simor to the waterfall, somewhere over a series of hills. Far enough that we had to stop for lunch. Simor had been gathering bamboo along the way, occasionally astounding us with such things as making a quick and pretty drinking cup from bamboo with his machete. Here goes another aside. Anybody who goes off into the jungle regularly carries a machete. These are definitely the Southeast Asian Boy Scout Knife. I even witnessed one man using his while repairing a motorbike. A clumsy but serviceable screwdriver. Back to lunch. We relaxed by a pretty section of stream while Simor built a fire from easily available deadwood, cut a few sections of bamboo to use as pots for boiling water from the stream. While the water came to a boil (a fairly slow process, bamboo is a pretty good insulator), he made our lunch plates by splitting more bamboo sections off center. Spoiler alert! The lunch was mostly Ramen Noodles, though spiced up with plenty of vegetables and a hard-boiled egg. Oh, and tea, also boiled in the bamboo tubes. Silverware was green sticks, the original chopstick.
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| What to do with a leaf from a Banana Tree or raingear in Northern Thailand. |
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| Simor from Myanmar cooking lunch with bamboo containers he made with machete. |
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| Ramen noodles never tasted so good to 2 weary trekkers. |
Nothing lasts forever. Up out of the streambed and over a few more hills. Finally we hear voices, obviously having a good time. The waterfall! And a very pretty one it is. Not huge, not even very big. Just picturesque as can be, with a perfect pool underneath, a little fall and another little pool. Water doesn't have to be all that cold to feel frigid in 90 degree heat (I did mention that part, didn't I? Did I mention that I spent the full trek soaked in sweat?). Refreshing, invigorating even. So refreshing we didn't even realize how we'd been had when it turned out we were no more than 50 yards from a road. Of course, our next village was a few kilometers down that road and no, there was no shuttle. No matter. It's amazing how luxurious a dirt road can feel after picking your way along a two foot wide path with sheer drops above and below.
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| Will, Daniel, Simor and Liz by waterfall |
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| Will, Daniel, Simor and Liz again |
There was a bit of a mixup at our next lodging. Our intended hosts had apparently taken the day off and the place was locked. The lady next door came to our rescue. I know I heard harsh words, apparently some hard bargaining with our guide. Nevertheless, when the smoke cleared Na Su became a gracious hostess. A local motorbike was pressed into service to obtain the necessary refreshments for the Falang (Foreigner) sissies with the wallets. We witnessed a young man head out to the woods with a strange looking gun. Got a better look at it later. It was easily five and a half feet long, muzzle loading, percussion cap shotgun with a bore that just fit my little finger. Later that afternoon, we heard a tremendous bang and the young man reappeared with a rather small squirrel. No, it wasn't served for dinner.
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| Le Hu Tribe's Na Su and her visting neighbor child Natonika |
After we refreshed ourselves with a shower (bucket of water and a dipper style, toilets were the squat variety) we lounged on the porch and provided entertainment for two young local girls (Mei Li, 13 and Natonika, 8), who were entranced by the pale hairy strangers. Again, I have no idea what we had for dinner was called, but you put it over rice and was delicious. I sprang for beers for Simor and Na Su, start of an expensive trend. Read a bit by flashlight and to bed, right? No way. The two girls who'd attached themselves to us were having none of that. It turned into a three language gabfest well into the night. The girls were especially intrigued by my hairy arms and chest, not to mention beard. Once again, I have forgotten to mention something. The villages we had been visiting were of the Le Hu (or something sounding like that) tribe and to call them Thai was an insult, I was quite forcefully told by Na Su. Sheesh.
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| Curious neighborhood child Mei Li |
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| Our accomodations on 2nd day of trip. Will, Daniel, Simor and Liz again |
Dawn, roosters again. Tonight we sleep in proper beds after a proper western shower. Still another day to go through though, after Guess What, another little walk. This one never fazed us being along roads that were mostly level. We passed by several villages, 6 or 7 family size and many vegetable fields and orchards. Typical farm country. During the day, most of these villages are deserted while the inhabitants are off taking care of the fields. One of last night's village's dogs had taken a shine to us and accompanied us all morning. We left the road for a while to explore a bat cave. Liz and I got just so far in and decided discretion was the better part of valor. No sense making Will and Dan carry us back to civilization with a broken or sprained whatever. We could see most of it from where we were anyway. Finally, a stopping point and a ride to the bamboo raft landing. We then had to option of paying another 300 baht each to view the Longneck Women. Geez, I'm sorry, but stated like that it felt a bunch like exploitation. However, for the folks back home, Dan offered to carry my camera so I only had to exploit them second hand. We relaxed for an hour watching more people show up for the raft ride and waiting for the folks to come back from the Karen (Longneck) village. Finally all together and ready to ride the rafts. Sorry, no packs or cameras on the rafts. In fact, take everything that could be damaged and put it in your packs. Hopefully, you will be reunited with them after the ride. Unfortunately I never thought to get a picture before my camera disappeared into my pack. The rafts are about 20 feet long, 8 feet wide, made from a double layer of 6 to 8 inch diameter bamboo and are about the most floatable thing I've ever seen outside of balsa. The ride itself was relaxing and fun, an hour or so long,with a chance to grab a beer from an enterprising boatman about halfway into it. Imagine that, another opportunity to grab a tourist buck! Raft ride over, we were driven (pickup taxi, standard conveyance around here) to, guess where, the Karen Village to await our final ride back to our hotel and perhaps this time visit the village. Stubborn me, refused yet again. Into yet another pickup taxi for a rather uncomfortable hour. Ta Da, we made it! My thin, soft REI bush shirt was stiff as canvas from sweat salt, pants ready to stand by themselves, my legs a poor grade of rubber, but we'd done it! There'd been a gas station stop where we picked up snacks we decided could substitute for an actual dinner. There was the shower, air conditioning and a soft bed. Good enough.
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| Group waiting for raft ride. I'm still upset I couldn't get a picture of the rafts. |
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| Hanging out. Note rustic construction, typical of everywhere we went. |
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| Exploitation of rustic primitives. |
A little note on the Karen (Longnecks). Many of the tribes in this area are refugees from Myanmar (They never say Myanmar, only Burma.). They are basically stateless persons. Many don't even speak Thai. They are unmolested in the North Thailand hills but have no papers or any other sort of identification so are effectively confined to the area,living on agriculture and tourist exploitation. That's not cheap, by the way. They control access to their villages and charge a 300 baht (nine dollar) toll to enter.
