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Published: August 17th 2009
(Authors warning - this is a long blog!)
To trek or not to trek....that's not even a question! YES of course!
Greetings from the Travellin Trio with sore feet, a few bug bites, and a craving for a soft bed!
The past 3 days have been absolutely amazing! After deliberating, contemplating, and juggling thoughts, plans, and ideas of how to explore the land around Chaing Mai we decided to bypass the typical tourist treks offered at every hostel and travel agency and selected a more unique, aggressive and action packed 3 day, 2 night trekking package north of Chaing Mai. Not for the faint of heart, lazy of excercise or shy traveler.
Most trekking packages around here take you to the Elephant Camp, or offer a hike up to the national park, maybe a white water rafting trip, blah blah blah. Fortunately, our hostel was one of the few places to promote and offer the trek we ended up taking. For a little extra Bhat we soon found ourselves taking the path less traveled with 7 other folks. A family from France with 2 kids, 11 & 13, (which we were nervous about at first, but let it be known that they can trek with the best of them!), and a couple from Germany both around our age and very fun. Last, but definitely, not least we had a fellow American, a woman, who has the most interesting and bizarre background, alcohol addict and homeless to give you a taste, and was unpredictable with what might come out of her mouth....It turned out to be a really great group and we all got along well which made the trek that much more enjoyable.
Day 1: We get picked up at our hostel and load into the back of a pickup truck, make shifted with benches that run alongside the walls of the truck bed, it is also covered. Plastic windows are rolled up in case it rains. The French family is already loaded, along with our fellow American Laura and we pick up the German couple, Mauricio and Christina (Maricio was actually from Bolivia, but living in Frankfurt for the past 16 years) and head off north for about a 1 1/2 drive. Small talk was made, cat naps were attempted and all of us thought about the trip to come. It was supposed to kick off with a trip to a locally known waterfall which is not included in the many other treks, however, an ominous looking pack of dark clouds and certain rain had the guides thinking otherwise. So, unfortunately, it was decided to swap our days and postpone the waterfall to another time. Also, unfortunate, was the lack of rain gear in the Travelin' Trio's packs - one which I couldn't believe, being a former boy scout and outdoor enthusiast and all. After a rocky and shaky trek over paved road, gravel road, and mud road we arrived at a drop of point for a light breakfast (fried egg and rice) and headed off to begin our 5 hour trek thru the jungle.
It was raining and it didn't look like it was going to let up anytime soon. The first 45 minutes was past rice fields and sparse jungles, over flooded streams so our shoes were immediately wet. Into the jungle we headed and the path was not that easy. Often times hard to tell exactly where the path lead us we sweated and soaked through our shirts immediately as most of this 5 hour trek was up, up, up. The rain let up a bit as we gained elevation, the jungle was still wet, it is a jungle/rain forest you know. Our main guide, Wei, was with us all three days and pretty much the only words we would hear from him, were, "carefull, slippery" or "let's go". I came to find out that Wei was only 22 and another guide that we had, Song, was just 19, married, with a child. Wei, was not very talkative, but very curious and eager to learn whatever we could teach him. Throughout the trip there were lessons exchanged between all trekkers. After trodding up muddy narrow passage ways, amongst huge ferns, and beneath towering bamboo forrests we finally made it to our camp for the evening. The camp was in a small valley beneath us as we broke through the jungle, there was a stream which ran close by as well - we all wanted to lay down in it. The last little trek down was muddy and treacherous, but finally we crossed the stream and set down our bags in our one large room abode. There were two very long wooden tables and a flat with 10 beds, in pairs of two upon it. Mosquito nets were rolled up so when ready for bed all you had to do was pull them down to ensure a bug free sleep. We cleaned up as best we could, sat down and discussed the day's happening, while our guides and two other dudes prepared our dinner.
We inhaled dinner. Food, especially, after a hard day of hiking, has never let me down. First to come out was a potato and broth soup, followed by a steamy plate of very fresh white rice, a bowl of chicken and vegetables, freshly cut pineapple, and all washed down with a cold can of Chang Beer. After the dinner plates were cleared the travelin' trio settled into a good ole game of Go Fish (we were trying to get a game for all people to play) but it turned out that most went to bed and I cleaned up the victory in Go Fish. We lingered around with the couple from Germany and our guide was with us too. Having the card deck out I set out to impress with a few card tricks, okay, a couple, but one is REALLY REALLY GOOD. It stumped our guide a couple times and we had some laughs - it's been a challenge, yet a very gratifying feeling to communicate with another person even when your language is continents apart. English is known around the world, just a little can go a long way, and the Thai's know more English than we know of Thai - it's our goal to work on that.
Day 2:
Let's discuss sleeping before we awake. While jungle-esque sleeping in mosquito nets is romantic and dream weaver material the sleeping pad they provided was not REM sleep inducing. Go ahead and sleep on your kitchen floor and we can swap stories. Needless to say it was a rough night of sleep that even 5 hours of wet challenging trekking, a full dinner, and two beers couldn't soften up. Waking up in the morning consists of getting your gear together, figuring out what wet clothes to wear or which dry ones to sacrifice to the upcoming onslaught of rain and sweat. Breakfast was made for us by our trusty guide Wei, scrambled eggs and toast, some butter and jam to slap on and more fresh pineapple. Some instant coffee or tea as well as ovaltine was available to sip on. Nothing too fancy, but it's hearty enough to get the day going. Day 2's itinerary called for more hiking and an elephant ride. We got a sneak peak and an excitement rush as, while getting ready to depart on the hike, a few elephants came ushered by our camp. Elephants are amazing to see live and in person - they are huge, massive beasts with tusks like swords and ears bigger than Fat Albert's t-shirts. We admired our future mode of transportation, looking forward to the trip, and put our wet, muddy shoes and socks back on for the day's walk around the block.
The trek was not as difficult as the first day's but did start with a lot of 'up' once again. The jungle was a forest of bamboo rising as high as 50 feet or more into the sky. Many bamboo stalks, shoots, trunks, whatever you call them had fallen and created interesting angles and designs as they laid to rest across other bamboo trees. All around us was green ferns and bamboo with a small trail cutting it's way up and down the hilly terrain. It should be noted that 'switchbacks' don't exist in Thailand - we're going straight up this sucker and straight down.
3 hours of trekking got us to our lunch camp - a village tucked away in the hills. It was good to get off our feet and good to have some lunch, however, we had flashbacks to college life as we swear that lunch was nothing more than Ramen soup with some fresh vegetables. We all burnt our tongues on the first spoonful - didn't that happen every time in college too!!!??? Regardless, it was food and we weren't complaining. Lunch ended with some of the local people coming out with their items for sale - it's unfortunate, but many people in these tribes have fallen back on the tourists buying the same trinkets, bracelets, scarves, etc that can be found in the city markets - the tribes work more for the tourists in some cases then they do themselves and a bit of tradition gets lost. The Long Neck people, the tribe which women have rings around their necks are quite the tourist attraction, however, it is said they take those off in the evening, only putting them on for the tourists. Also, the government doesn't allow them to leave Thailand, they cannot receive visa's, because they are such money makers.....at least, that's what we've been told, and there seems to be a little truth to that.
Lunch done, shopping in the bag, I settled for a bracelet from a woman with no teeth for 50 Baht, that's like a $1.50 and what's that we hear coming up the way? Elephant time! Barbar and his crew coming to give us a ride, oh yeah. They seemed bigger than the ones we saw in the morning, perhaps it was the saddle seat things they had on their backs but 5 guides were riding bare back on the elephants neck and we split into pairs to go for a ride. Anna and I got onto our elephant and we were off, slowly making our way, 12 feet in the air on top of an elephant - it was pretty cool.
Our elephant's name was Bok and about 5 minutes into the ride our guide turns around and asks me if I want to ride in front.....like on the elephant's neck where he was! I think he just wanted to sit next to Anna and get some time with her, but heck, I didn't mind! ; ) So we made a little switch-er-roo, him coming onto the seat and me riding the elephant, hands on his head, legs saddling his bare neck. It took a few minutes to get used to as each mammoth step the elephant took, especially when going up, would rock you a little bit from his bones and muscle movements, left side and then right side. Your hands are resting on his head, there's nothing really to hold onto, and the hair is very coarse. I encouraged Bok with some head rubbing and some behind the ear scratching, his skin back there was much softer than the top of his head.
We treaded through forest and in between cornfields over the hilly and lush Thailand country side. Bok was a very hungry elephant, I think they would love to eat all the time, and it was incredible to see him uproot huge grasps of green bush, or his favorite, multiple 7 foot corn stalks with such ease. It was like a drive thru buffet for the big guy. I was worried about some of the thorny brush we were treading thru, I mean, we were in the big weeds and bush often, but Anna was high enough to miss it hitting her legs and Bok's Fat Albert T-shirt sized ears protected my dangling legs. Its was amazing to see these elephants, as massive as they are, maintain balance and place one foot literally over the other to follow in line with the elephant in front of them. They are sure footed indeed.
About an hour went by and about 5 minutes before 'elephant chafe-age' would surely set in we crossed a little stream, got a friendly mud spray from Bok, and arrived at our destination- the tribal village Palong. We had much of the afternoon to relax, clean up, and enjoy the day. The tribe did have a shower for us - a concrete floored, open-aired, wooden shed with cool running water got the two day old grime off of us, I could create another equally long blog to describe how wonderful that felt.
You may wonder about the other part of the bathroom scene - we've got the shower and up the hill is the toilet...ahh, going number 2 in Thailand - the rumors, the speculation, the fear, the shivers, the cleanliness, the little hole in the ground......well, I tried to hold off, tried to make it to a proper porcelain squatter, however, I decided to have my first go and head up the hill to the toilet shack. First off, it wasn't that bad. There's a proper toilet, just a little different than the ones we are used to. You step up onto a raised box, could be porcelain, why not, and instead of sit, you squat and aim. It's not that difficult. There's a large bucket of water with a cup that you pour behind you whenever you feel necessary, the concept of a 'courtesy flush' still can exist in these moments, and is advisable to make a prettier picture for you in general. The squatting took a bit to get used to, not really newspaper material, but if it's a good couple of minutes your logging then a slight stand up to flex the legs is necessary. Catchers in Baseball would have no problem with this sort of bathroom break. The used toilet paper doesn't go down the hole, but into a trash bag hanging at a arms reach - kinda yucky, but wipe and release and get out of there. Plenty of Purell or hand sanitizer is packed into our bags for sure.....so, there you have it.....a crap of a good time I admit.
We spent the late afternoon playing with the kids of the tribe, rock, paper scissors is especially popular. The 11 year old french girl with us brought a large pack of coloring markers and pens and offered it to the kids - we gave them some paper and it was great to see the artwork which came forth. Interestingly enough, each kid created something very similar - a landscape scene with mountains, a rice or corn field and people working in the field - they were looking off of one anothers artwork which is part of it, but another part is that the farm and village they are in is probably all they know at this time.
The evening led to our last trekkin' supper - another superb meal done up by Wei including rice, seasoned and steamed vegetables with chicken and other soup. After dinner we were treated to an evening performance by the women in the tribe. They were in ceremonial clothing with the older women in back and the younger, little girls in front. They sang their tribes songs and it was really funny to watch the young kids who know the song, but still are learning some of the hand movements as well as words. Upon finishing their bit, they sat down and abruptly said, "now your turn".....Umm, our turn??? Well, we kinda looked at each other, not knowing exactly what to do but, unbeknown to most of us, we had a summer camp counselor amongst us, Camp Counselor Holli! We busted out all kinds of numbers, the Hookie Pookie, A Boy and Girl in a Little Canoe, Head Shoulder Knees and Toes (which they already knew) and some other great camp fire silly songs which we laughed our way through. Mauricio, a guy I talked with alot on the trip, happened to know the words to "Macarena" and we got our line dancing on - the kids happened to know that one as well, the dance movements at least. We gave them a pretty good show I must say, Counselor Holli was on point that night and I'm sure no other group coming through there could've come close to our wacky performance.
After the rock show a few of our crew said good night and a few of us stayed up for more card tricks and other games. Song and Wei, using only broken twigs, both had a number of brain teasers for us to contemplate and we had a lot of fun with the trial and error. My award winning card trick stumped Song a couple of times, but the young guy is very eager to learn and I revealed the slight of hand for him to practice and wow the next passerby's.
Finally, we retired for the evening - another rock solid mosquito net bed awaited us. It was a little easier to catch some Z's that second night, however, rude awakenings by every rooster in the village in the morning made catching Z's a shortened process.......and so Day 3 begins and I think Ms. Anna is going to take us to the finish line for this trek.....
Day 3:
Anna:
So according to Lucas...he's kicking our butts on the travel blog! I hate to admit that's he's right...for now anyway😉
Onto Day 3 of our adventure through the northern jungles of Thailand. Bye now, our exhausted muscles are starting to scream. Especially after the second night of sleeping on bamboo and little else. We had enjoyed an amazing night under a bamboo hut with the Palong tribe. Listening to the rain pour down while they sang and danced to the soft strumming of a two-string guitar. Holli and I were pretty exhausted and all but fell onto our mats around 8:30pm. Lucas stayed up with the boys teaching the magic tricks and trying his hand at a little two-string guitar.
The next morning came quickly and when the rooster started singing (it was actually more of a horrific scream followed by grunts and bocks) we knew we were in for yet another taxing day of hiking through the steamy jungle. After getting ourselves ready, our guide Wui prepared coffee and a breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast. Yet again, Lucas entered a bread eating contest against himself...think he might've downed 8 pieces of bread coated with butter and jam. Talk about a carbo-load! We set off for our morning hike around 9:30am. The itinerary for the trekk has varied from what we were originally told so it was a great surprise to hear that we only had 2-3 hours of trekking in the morning and then we'd be riding by truck to the limestone caves and white water rafting site. Wahoo!!!!!!!!
Our initial descent from the Palong tribe was, to put it nicely, messy. For about a mile, we hiked in pure mud. This is mud like i've never seen...the kind that you can sink into and never return (just like that movie 'The Never Ending Story')! Within minutes we were covered in the reddish-brown mud and our shoes were no longer recognizable. Holli and I decided that this was just like one of those spa treatments that included a mud bath..except ours was for free😉
After about an hour of hiking we made it to the Karen village. It was still pretty early and many of the tribe members were out in the field working or getting ready for the day. It's such a weird site to see a satellite dish amongst such primitive living. That said, they are so remote that i definitely don't blame them! Dogs, chickens and even little piglets ran amongst the children. We quietly made our way through the village and continued on our way. Wui, stopped several times to point out different fruit trees, ginger plants, and other plants acting as natural remedies.
After close to two hours, we rounded a corner and found a pick up truck waiting for us. What a great site to behold! The 'trekking' portion of the trip was now over and it'd be easy going from here on out. Well, if you count piling into the back of a pick-up truck and sitting on a wooden board for almost two hours easy going!😉 Our driver drove straight to the famous Chiang Dao Limestone Cave. The Caves were surrounded by beautiful lush scenery with flowers and ponds full of Coi fish on steroids. They were huge! We walked through the caves for about 15 minutes. The temperature was at least 20 degrees cooler which was a welcome relief. There were countless buddhas placed throughout the caves and it was quite impressive. After our tour, we walked to a nearby restaurant where a nice thai lunch was being prepared for us. After lunch we boarded the truck once again and drove over an hour to our white water rafting adventure!
Now this is what we've all been waiting for! The river, while much tamer during the dry season, was alive and kickin'! We were each given a helmet, life vest and a quick five minute rafting tutorial. Our guides were all thai of course and about the size of ten year olds. They spoke English but the commands went something like this..'foward....baward...get don....get wight..get weft..'. Needless to say, we had to pay close attention...haha. Our guide, Pon, quickly proved he knew what he was doing but he also had a great sense of humor. Lucas decided to make up a 'Pon' cheer to the 'We will rock you' beat. Pon was very impressed!😉
Luke, Holli, Mauricio, Kristina (the german trekkers), and I boarded the raft. We were all so excited and a bit anxious as to what was ahead! Like any other rivers there were challenging rapids followed by a peaceful float. During the slower times we had water fights with other rafters, however, we'd quickly get to business when 'Pon' would scream 'On the Job!' There were a few rapids that definitely tested our skills. Luke and Mauricio were in front and definitely bore the brunt of the waves cascading over the raft. I think Luke managed to swallow a couple of gulps from the lively river....yummy😉 Once we'd made it through the last of the rapids, Pon pulled us over to a house on the side of the river. He ran to grab 5 Chang Beers which we gladly sipped while taking in the beautiful scenery. We then pulled over and he held the raft while we moved to a long bamboo raft. Holli and I sat side by side while the others spaced themselves out. We were in a fit of giggles as the raft seemed to be sinking rather than floating! From the pictures, it looks like we're just gracefully sitting on the top of the water!
After the ride, we thanked Pon for such a wonderful time. This was definitely a highlight of the trip. We changed out of our wet clothes and boarded the truck for the long ride home. We all dove into whatever snacks we had left and then dosed in and out of sleep from pure exhaustion. Wui dropped us off at our hotel and we said our goodbyes. He was such a great guide. We couldn't have asked for more.
We decided to spend one more night at the Top North Hotel and I can't tell you how good that first shower was. I could've taken 20 more just like it. Instead, we headed treated ourselves to the first 'american' meal in a week. Holli and I ordered sandwiches with french fries and Lucas couldn't resist the Hawaiian Pizza. A bottle of wine later and it was all we could do to stay awake until our heads hit the pillow. A mattress instead of a bamboo mat....we were in heaven!
It is the night of 8/17 and we are taking a night bus down south to then catch a speed boat to ferry us to the Island Ko Toa
Beach time for the ladies....and Lucas can't complain much either!
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Betsy
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I'm feeling covered with mud but exhilarated with the fun of the rafting trip. Thx for sharing the stories in such vivid detail.