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December 04, 2004

Ahhh! Trekking in the Jungle!

Ahhhh! So finally Nicola showed up...and the next morning we were off to Mae Hong Son for some long awaited trekking! We took the bus in the morning from Chiang Mai to there, opting for the longer but safer less windy route through Mai Sariang. Nice trip, but it took about 9 hours to get there! Once there got a tuk tuk out to our hostel...where there was no one except for two boys from New Zeland...who had I had actually randomly seen numerous times back in Ayuthaya the whole day when I was riding around on my bike!

At any rate, we chated with them, and decided to look for a trek together tomorrow. Nicola and I had a contact from another friend who had done an amazing trek here a year ago...so we set out to find Long Time Tours (www.long-time-tours@myway.com). What a great move that was! Booked our three day trek to leave the next morning.

We set off, Nicola and I, our two new Kiwi friends, Andy and Ben, and our guide Long and another porter. We opted for the harder hike in the beginning...which entailed hiking straight up a mountain! Whew! We were all huffing and puffing and needed to take a break every 20 minutes or so...except for our guide of course who could have just scooted up the moutain. We stopped for an amazing lunch as we neared the top of our second mountain. We sat on the side of the mountain overlooking the surrounding mountains, with views into Burma/Myranmar. Simply amazing! And the lunch...it was heaven! The porter unwrapped abuot 6 huge banana leaves, each with a differnt food in them. We each received our own banana leaf with red rice in it, where we took a bit of rice in one hand, dipped it into some of the other food and ate away! Beef with ginger, jack fruit salad, some sort of satay, yum!

Once our bellies were full we continued up and then down the mountain and into a White Karan Village. It was perfect. This village was nesteled in the mountains, with their dry rice fields off on another hill. They had just finished harvesting their crop of rice that day. There were about 50 people or 15 families living in the village. We just walked around for a bit, observing what people were doing and trying to chat with some of the locals. We stayed in the head cheifs hut for the night...a house made completely out of bamboo, which can be made in a day, once all the supplies are collected! There was a cooking fire pit in the middle of it and also used to keep warm, and palm leaves for the roof. Our guide Long started cooking our next feast as we relaxed. I watched some young girls pound the rice away on what looked like a sort of see-saw that you stand on and let a wooden pole fall so that it pounds the rice and takes the husk off the rice. They do this every day. The little girls doing this work were only about 8-10 years old. Hard workers! I offered to help, but only got to work for about 5 minutes before they had finished and then had to sift the husks from the rice.

Took a fast freezing shower out in the open...and then ate another delicious dinner! Smoked chicken, rice, green veggies stir fry etc. But the best part was the delicious orange tea, with about 2 scoops of sugar in it and lime juice! Perfect!

In the evening the whole village came in and we gave them a few supplies that we had packed in with us, and then they showed us some of there things that they have made. Bought a bag and a woven piece of cloth. Went to well deserved sleep!

The next morning we woke up and ate more delicious food of toast, eggs, and strong coffee. And said good-bye to the village. We started hiking down the mountain for a bit...we were on our way to spend the night in a bamboo hut that our guide had made. We hiked for a good part of the morning, stopped to eat lunch out of banana leaves again, and then walked up stream to find a waterfall to swim in. It was refreshing! We made it to our camp and set out to dry all of our wet clothes! Long was cooking away, widdeling away bamboo spoons, bowls, and pots for us to cook and eat with. We sat around the fire all night long. When we woke in the moring, Nicola and I went to use the bathroom (yep our nice friendly bush) and we saw water buffalo just curising by us as we were peeing!

Headed off this morning to trek through a river, back and forth and back and forth we must have crossed the river about 15 times! Each time I cinched up my bag a bit higher and higer so the contents inside would not touch the water! But by the last time the water was just too high and my legs were just too short! So Long too my backpack, put it over his head and told me to swim! Then spent the next hour relaxing swimming in the river there before our final climb up to the top of the mountain and back down to the car!

Aghhh! No better way to end this trek than with a stop for lunch and a hot spring and a wonderful Thai massage! Amazing!

Luckily, though some might say unluckily, we didn't see any snakes or tigers! However we did see a bunch of water buffalo and our guide was quite good at calling them over to us! A little too good I think!

Ahhh! The good life!


Posted by annawojo on December 4, 2004 03:02 AM
Category: Thailand
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