trekking: an adult’s perspective
taken from Rachael’s journal with Rob commenting in italics
It was surreal to be standing there slightly above most of the Karen village looking down at the smoke curling up out of bamboo huts, the red glow of fire visible through an open doorway perched at the top of a ladder, chickens running around under the house…..and there we were in the midst of it all.
Buffalo bells tinkled as a brightly clothed lady hurried past with a baby strapped to her back in a dirty-looking grey cloth. They looked like they had just stepped out of a National Geographic magazine. And there we were, peering into their lives, sitting beside their fire (the smoke bringing tears to my eyes as it tried to escape out the opening near the roof), looking at their livestock, trying to guess the age of the man with the two-toothed grin, wondering where the children were in this village of 42 people, just being there.
The next day, shivering under the musty dusty blankets, smoke from last night’s dinner fire still lingering, I hear him. It’s no wonder – the walls are just split bamboo, so not exactly soundproof. The floor is more of the same. He stirs, ruffles his feathers and then flaps two or three times in the darkness. Pitch black darkness. It is only 3am after all. But time apparently means little to him and he throws his head back and crows. From a few huts away along the hillside another rooster answers. Then a third echoes across the valley. On and on they compete converse, each with a distinctive call, always in the same order. And I shiver.
4:30am and the village throws off sleepiness, greets a new day.
Pound, pound, pound; the morning’s rice is prepared for cooking.
Crackle, crackle; a fire is brought back to life.
Ding-dong, ding-dong; the buffalo are led out to new grass.
Chickens scratch in the dirt, pigs snuffle in their slops and those wretched roosters are still crowing. (Actually, we will later rejoice at the sound of a cockerel, because it will signal the fact that we have crossed the mountain and come close to the next village).
A very young baby cries out “next door” and I am reminded that the whole world over mothers wake up to attend to the needs of their children. For me on this day it means crouching over a shallow black bucket and scooping water from a bigger bucket to wash out our little one’s night nappy (diaper for you Americans). The water is icy cold and for the first time ever I question my resolve to use reusable cloth nappies! (Rob says – you should not be questioning it by now! You should know it is madness 🙂 ) Not that I could change anything at that remote point. Besides, tomorrow I’ll have two new reasons for using big square muslin cloths; they make a far better sunhat than a throw-away nappy would, and I doubt there’s anything you could do with a sposie that would get as many giggles from the children as when they watch their mother running downstream with a bamboo pole trying to fish out a newly-washed-and-fallen-off-a-rock-nappy from the fast-flowing river. And the roosters will be crowing at this village too.
But before we get to tomorrow we need to get through today….and that means three hours of hiking up and down – it’s not called a HILLtribe trek for nothing, you know. Up and down, up and down, wonderful vistas, peels of laughter accompanying us, buffalo bells ringing out, occasional skidding on rocky path, not meeting another soul, bamboo bridge over bubbling brook, more up and down, a little more up and then suddenly a rooster crows and we’re at another village. There’s just time for a swig of water and to investigate the church service in progress before we’re off UP that hill again.
After three hours and eight hard kilometers the elephant camp comes in to view just beyond a stile over a fence surrounding a vegetable garden. Mboy6 wails his way in to camp, having just pierced his stomach with his bamboo walking stick – dangerous to fall on, but more dangerous trying to get down the mountain without one – even the guides need them.
Down at the river’s edge an elephant is being bathed and the guides are remarkably quickly throwing together a bamboo raft on which they will speed past our elephant group later. We eat, fend off the ladies selling their wares (and you can’t blame them – it IS their livelihood, but there are only so many bracelets and carved elephants you can buy, and we already have our own homemade bottle bags), attend to Tgirl4’s sting-on-the-cheek-by-something-BIG-and-black-and-flying, collect the nappies from the bamboo fence they had been drying on….and then it is time for the long-awaited elephant ride. Funny, really. We had never planned on riding elephants, but when the local rag ran an article about our trip they included the unmentioned-by-us “fact” that we would be travelling by elephant. And here we were, with a rooster crowing behind us and four elephants waiting ahead. ERgirl2 was quietly whispering her mantra, “Dadda will hold me tightly”, and before my own niggling fear had time to take hold I was stepping on the elephant’s head and taking my wooden seat. Quick as a flash two little ones joined me and we were off. What? No keeper? Oh well, that must mean he’s a well-trained beast. Surely.
swaying from side to side
up so high
mahouts calling out
giving instructions with a shout
full of wrinkles, this boy’s hide
a wooden chair securely tied
down in to the river
one step at a time
lurching forward
but sure-footed
steady
water rushes past
the beast beneath feels mighty
enormous
strong
safe
apprehension turns to enjoyment
amazement
wonder
fun
in and out of the water we plod
tearing up trees
picking up a passenger
dropping….well…..droppings
standing stock still
until a shanghai does its work
picking up speed
to slow excitement
The elephants take us almost to the next village where we immediately meet Lahu mothers with babies. A two-month-old has six older siblings, including one who is twenty years old. The mother looks much older than me, but in reality is probably younger. Life is hard. Her sister has ten-month-old twins. She is 15 years old. Grandma, mum to these two mums, takes her turn holding, feeding, carrying in a wrap.
People say you don’t really get to know much on these tourist treks. And in many ways they are right. We see, sleep amongst and pass four different tribes, each with its own language, dress, customs. There is little we can learn in three days. But who can tell the impact it has my 14 year old daughter to see a girl just a smidgen older than herself caring for two babies? Who can tell all that is behind my young son’s observation that “they don’t really have much, do they”? Did he notice the lack of computers, beds, toys, bikes, couches, showers, books, lawnmowers, games, cars, cushions, telephones, wardrobes, ovens, lights, pencils, carpets, glass in windows….?
Who knows what they all took in?
Our second hut was much like the first – big bamboo room with thin foam mats (Rob snaffled an extra ‘mattress’ so he could have two layers the second night – not that it made much difference!), blankets and mosquito nets. Instead of being “out the back”, the toilet and shower (a euphemistic expression for bucket of water with pouring scoop) were downstairs. Ah, now there’s another interesting word. The stairs wasted not a scrap of timber – they were placed as far apart as is physically possible for most people to stretch to. OSH (finicky NZ department responsible for Occupational Safety and Health) would have a field day – then there were the seats overhanging great drops with either one supporting rail or none at all. And the fire pit on the wooden deck. And the steps without a handrail. Yes, this place was pretty rickety. But it was no worse than any of the other buildings in this hundred-or-so person village. Begs the question, what do we *need*?
After another feast cooked by our guides (including a rooster – heehee – that we heard being caught – you don’t get much fresher than that!) and a short sit around the fire under an incredible starry starry sky, we fell asleep with the river rushing past a mere few metres away, drowning out the sounds of rooster-Â or at least muting them so we will sleep longer tomorrow.
The Next Day
The trek we had chosen had bamboo rafting down the river on the third day’s itinerary. And after yesterday’s hiking, it sounded an attractive option. However, we had elected NOT to take the raft and so faced the only alternative; a four hour 12km trek out. While the rest of the group ate a leisurely fried rice breakfast, we started our uphill battle. The first hour was relentless non-stop constant seemingly-unending UPhill. After about half an hour Tgirl4 concluded, “I don’t really like upwards….” After another half dozen steps she puffed, “But I do like downwards…..” And another minute later, having obviously considered all the options, she added, “I even like flatwards.”
Because my knee was aching on the downwards, I preferred the flatwards or upwards – but that is not to say it was easy. My calves were screaming in protest – some of the others thought their thighs wouldn’t make it. But we did. And were deservedly triumphant at our achievement, especially the little four year old and the Father, whose turn it was today to carry ER2 in the sling. No mean feat that!
We even got to walk through rice paddies and watch the harvesting, threshing, drying, bagging. We had read a book about rice production, but it really could not compare with seeing The Real Thing.
Then came the walk along a bumpy dirt road – for most of us, anyway. Three of the boys got a motorbike ride. Silly billy Tgirl4 was too scared, so ended up having to walk the entire distance in the blazing sun. Our guide fashioned her a sunhat out of a stick and banana palm leaf. I suspect he thought it looked better than my cloth nappy hat! Where were our sunhats? Thinking we would be jungle trekking like the previous days, we had sent them in our packs down the river on the bamboo raft. Not particularly useful at all (Hmmm, had I really said it would take ages for the mist to burn off this morning? LOL – Rob adds)
Along we trudged, past an Akha village, past bright orange sweetcorn and passionfruit orchards, past a man whittling a gun for hunting and his wife beading bracelets, past pumpkins hanging in trees and as-yet-unripened bananas…..to a swing bridge, across which we would find a welcome plate of Pad Thai.
The girls, who had rafted down, assured us that no matter how hard our morning had been, we had made a wise decision; the raft was constantly under water for the full one and a half hours, and at times they could not even see it – they just had to believe it was beneath them. For safety, they had been required to sit down at times and so were soaked to the armpits. I was glad we had opted to walk.
It felt like the adventure was over. Oh, we knew we were still going to visit an orchid and butterfly farm, but we anticipated a gentle ride in the truck to get there. We were in for a surprise! The truck heaved and bumped over the narrow potholed dirt track, throwing us from side to side and right up off our seats. The adventure continued, and we even heard roosters still crowing. We passed more elephants and somehow squeezed past trucks coming the other way on this definitely-only-one-lane track. I could not bear to look down the cliff to the river!
“OK that was fun, I’m ready for the road now,” I commented to no-one in particular. Rob consulted the trusty GPS and informed me we would be following the river for another 10km before meeting the road. He was not wrong! And when we finally did join the road, it turned out to be a “secondary road” – there were more potholes than paving. Honestly. And we spent almost as much time on the wrong side of the road as on the right side, trying somewhat unsuccessfully to pick a path that minimised jolts and jars.
Eventually we met the main road, which led us to the farm. Hmmm. We were all sooo exhausted we could not muster any interest in the orchids. But we wandered in to check out the butterflies…well, we had seen more on our walk that morning than we saw in the enclosure! (Rob adds – the Orchid farm is worth putting on that ‘what to do if we really have nothing else to do’ list – but at the bottom!) So we collapsed in the truck for the last smooth leg back to Chiang Mai.
We are having immense difficulty uploading photos, in spite of Rob surreptitiously playing with the guesthouse’s router and antenna, so the 300+ pics we took on the walk will have to wait until we find a better internet connection. Then we’ll treat you to our first slideshow – heehee.
Tags: children, craft, dress, food, health, intergenerationalism, learning, parenting, postcard: Thailand, recreation, toilet, tradition, transport
rayres
Id find that wake up at 3am – 430 am hard
Im not a very early morning person
must have been a welcoming sight finally seeing the new camp
hope Tgirl4 is ok
enjoyed the peom
I dont blame Tgirl4 Ive never been on a motorbike either
Jen
This is fabulous!!! What an exciting trip to do!! How did you find out about it? Commend you darling children on their hard work – what a great job! You have all done so well. The training of your children is rewarding you. I agree, I think you took the better option than the raft :-/. I wonder what the children will say about this part of the trip in years to come? I am sooo excited for you!
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I noticed in the picture of the family that only half of you were wearing packs. Did you take all your packs on the hike (and some just weren’t in the picture) or did you only take some of the packs for the 3 days? If so, what did you do with the other packs in the meantime?
We left the rest of our gear at the guesthouse where we were staying in Chiang Mai. We locked our valuables (laptop etc) in a safe and left the rest of the bags in the office, all locked together.