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Published: September 9th 2008
Yesterday morning did a mini solo trek to a couple of the Akha villages within walking distance of Mae Salong. Tea is a big thing around there, and passed several pickers, all wearing their straw cone hats, working in the fields. Made a decision to avoid the Karen (long necked women) villages, which were a bit further afield, as it just seems a bit tacky- passed a couple of posters on the drive up to mae salong, advertising a couple of karen villages, and they looked like circus posters.
I have also chickened out, so far, of spending a night under sticks (and probably with livestock) in a village, tho may build up to this later in the week.
Yesterday afternoon, went to visit the Chinese Martyr Museum, just outside mae salong. Most of the exhibits and info was in Chinese, but was something to do with the military situation that resulted in so many Hunnan ending up in Mae Salong. The museum consisted of a large, tiled hall with a map of southern asia on opposite walls- one of the maps was in english, the other in thai. Running along the back of the hall was a ledge, crowded with red wooden slats, about 5 inches in height, embedded in a block of black wood, the size of a credit card only thicker. They looked a little like gravestones, so assuming they were memorials of some sort. Either side of the small hall were two slightly smaller halls, which held the exhibitions.
There was a temple in the museum grounds, half way up a small hill. A little further up was a wat, where some monks were having their lunch. It looked like a fairly new building, small, square and concrete, and a group of workmen were carefully sticking pieces of coloured mosaic to the font (I know it's not a font, but don't know the proper word, so it'll have to do).
This morning, got a truck to Tha Tom. Have managed to climb three of Wat Tha Tom's nine storeys - each level has a huge statue. The wat is spread up along a forested hill, and from a distance, you can only see the statues, poking out from the trees.
Was totally knackered by the third level. There was a rest stop handily placed at the very point I thought I might collapse, so I went in for some water, and was pigeon holed by the little thai chef, who wanted to practice his English by talking about David Beckham and Manchester United.
Tomorrow planning to move on to chiang mai.
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wendy street
non-member comment
Levels of enlightenment !
I suppose being questioned about David Beckam and Manchester United at level three was par for the course. Wonder what the questions would have been at level 9. The God particle ? The Large Hadron Collider ? The Higgs boson ? Stephen Hawking ?