Yorron's travel blogs:
- THE JOURNEY WITHIN: Using unfamiliar destinations as... 2007
- Blogless travels 1982
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Trekking adventure. Chapter two (of three)
Entry 5 of 47 | show all | print this entry |
It's still dark but the roosters already begin their morning calls. Those will continue for the next several hours in rounds of about three minutes with five minute breaks between rounds. Everyone in the hut is still asleep. In the next room our hosts are up. They talk quietly as they light the fire and start preparing breakfast. I get up and walk to the toilet hut nearby, the only structure here that's not on stilts. Next to the squat toilet there's a basin with water and a plastic cup waiting to be used to wash your behind and flush. I'm very grateful for the wet wipes I brought with me as I have no intention of using the murky water in the basin.
The "shower", which is in the same hut, is a large plastic garbage can filled with water and a floating cup. I used it last night. I was hot and sweaty from the three hours hike earlier. It is way too cold for me to consider showering again this morning. (Oh, how much I miss my morning bath ritual).
On the way back from the hut I note the incredible beauty around me. The green mountains around are shrouded in clouds. The five dog pups, who huddled yesterday evening next to the pig, are now suckling on their mother's teats. The roosters are parading around the village, and the pigs are waking up. The wood and bamboo huts look like they belong there. The brand new red Honda motorcycle, however, looks like a transplant from a different reality.
Two barefoot Buddhist monks descend from a nearby mountain. As they arrive in the village they stand quietly holding empty pans. The village women come to meet them with food dishes and small dark glass bottles (later I found out those contain the drink "Red Bull" was came from). They bow to the monks before they hand them the food. Once about six women gather, they all bow together to the monks who start chanting a blessing upon the women. I walk quietly back to the hut. The other travellers are still asleep.
I practice yoga between the sleeping area and the kitchen where the voices start getting louder. An hour later when I conclude my practice our guide walks into the sleeping area and wakes everyone up imitating a rooster call (Karan version). We ask him about the "pig monitor". It turns out it is connected to the solar panel outside to provide electricity for the small fluorescent light in the kitchen. We are disappointed the pigs are not monitored here but we love the breakfast (toast, jam and an onion tomato omelet).
We say goodbye to our hosts and head out for a three hour strenuous hike. Zigzagging upstream through a creek we walk through muddy trails from six to twelve inches wide. It's a grueling hike and the stops we take are often to burn off leeches that climbed into our shoes and up our legs. Some of us are lucky and get no leeches at all. Poor Sean got several and did not feel anything until pools of blood appeared on his socks. For the most part we walked single file, each person to his/her own thoughts. The sights are beautiful but due to the treacherous conditions my eyes are often towards the ground, surveying the road.
I notice that my thoughts drift towards what is wrong here and how things could be better. The backpack they loaned me at the trekking office is uncomfortable and the straps seem to cut off my shoulders. They told us that our own backpacks would be too big. I think Sean and I would have been better off sharing my top notch back pack.
I wonder why my thoughts seem to always drift towards what's wrong. After all, this is one pretty extraordinary experience, why can't I just be joyful? I start singing the song and half I barely know and it feels good, so i continue humming. Despite the good feeling, in the back of my mind there's a judgement about myself not being able to carry a tune.
We arrive at our lunch spot completely drenched in sweat and exhausted. The rice and vegetable lunch, packed in banana leaves, is delicious. The nearby stream has a mini waterfall turned into a shower by two bamboo tubes diverting the water from the source. It is just lovely here and we take an hour rest. Sean is feeling sick (sore throat and a cold) so I give him some of the herbs I brought from home. He and the other travellers fall asleep under the bamboo shack that's on the side of the stream. I write in my journal.
We continue with the hike. Any hopes that this section would be any easier quickly fade. More uphill hiking as the trail narrows and become even more slippery and muddy. More leeches. Sean is getting sicker with each step. The leeches seem to love him and we discover a couple of more on his legs. By the time we make it to our final destination I have already changed 3 t-shirts. I seem to change shirts a s often as Cher changes outfits.
Our stop for the night is a camp near the river where we'll start our bamboo rafting the next morning. It consists of three huts. One for sleeping, one for cooking and one for the toilet. No shower here. To clean ourselves we jump into the shallow river with soap and brave the cold water (and when I say "brave" I mean screamingly so). Our guide lights a campfire for us and starts making our dinner; a pumpkin-bean-rice dish he made from ingredients he gathered on the hike. Delicious! Sean has fever and chills. The Chinese herbs I gave him are not helping him and one of our travel mates offered him a British version of TheraFlu powder. I make him the drink in a bamboo cup we purchased this morning from our hosts (20 baht). As I lay beside him we hear the others (four English, one Mexican, three Thais) around the campfire singing American folk songs. We fall asleep to the sounds of "American Pie".
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