Twelve trekking in Thailand is terrific!
Trip Start
Feb 01, 2004
1
23
44
Trip End
Jun 01, 2004
Northern Hill Tribe villages,
Thailand
Saturday, March 20, 2004
This is how we are feeling after our three day trek to the hillside tribe villages of Northern Thailand.
We headed out with twelve of us in the back of a songthaew for several hours. (Four German university lads, two German sisters-both medical students, a German/Korean couple, a 21 year old German mechical engineering student, a Spanish Iberian airline employee, and us!) And yes, it was hot and cramped...imagine the twelve of us, sacks of rice, tubs of margarine, bags of vegetables...well, you get the picture.
En route we stopped at a Lisu market, hiked to a waterfall and had a picnic lunch. We arrived in a Shan village where we started hiking. Before we headed out we witnessed part of a Shan funeral and had a coconut ice cream for the trail.
We did some serious hiking for several hours, mainly uphill to our first Karen village where we would spend the night in their longhouse. They had only seven families living there with a total of 42 inhabitants. It was very rustic with lots of pigs, chickens, roosters, water buffalo and dogs running about. For those of you that saw the pictures of our luxurious accomodation with Jamie and Rita and Jim, this was far from it. It was cold, the floor was really hard, and the squat toilet was down a steep steep hill (and it was pitch black at night!)
Our guide, Charan was excellent, pointing out things of interest along the way, such as ant hills, bamboo, wild orchids, lychee and pointsettia trees, banana plantations, etc.
On day two, we took an easier trek to an elephant camp where we swam and ate lunch.
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From here we rode elephants to the next camp (about two hours). This was amazing! It is sad to realize that at the turn of the century there were over 100,00 elephants in Thailand and today there are less than 5,000...and most of them are domesticated in camps or begging on the streets.The ride took us from one village to another-a Lahu village where we would spend the second night (also with all twelve of us on the floor in a long house...) We sure needed a shower after the elephants, but there was no water...so it was bathe in the river or nothing.
The meals were interesting as our guide seemed to produce beautful yellow curry with rice and sweet and sour vegetables from nowhere!
The third day we walked only a short while to a village where they made bamboo rafts. The river was quite low since there has been no rain for several months...this meant we poled for three hours (well, Paul and Martin poled and Soo and I sat...). This was quite a trip down the Maethong River, where we had to get out and push, remove rocks, and make dams in order to get down it! Actually all the splashing and competition among rafts made it rather fun...
This took us to an Akha village where we caught the songthaew back to Chiang Mai. The entire trip was tough but excellent and we are thrilled to have had the chance to see how these tribes live.
Some of the most interesting things were interacting with the kids, watching the elephants mate, watching the locals lash the bamboo into rafts, watching Charan cut bamboo to use to steam the sticky rice, and watching us eat bee larvae for dessert...
Enjoy the photos!
Awesome!!! Check out a few of the photos at travelpod.
