Advertisement
The First Night
Catalina, Ravi, Me, Maria, Jose & Pete Hi All - After chilling out for 4 days doing nothing except getting baked on Lamai Beach in Koh Samui we headed up to Chiang Mai for our 3 day jungle trekk. Getting there was pretty hectic and involved an overnight bus trip back to Bangkok which arrived at 5:30AM, then hanging around Bangkok until 7:40PM for our overnight train ride up to Chiang Mai. That was all good actually because I got to see Starwars III - WICKED!
When we first arrived we met our Guide, Mr Dong, two Chillian girls, Catalina & Ravi (sorry Ravi I can't spell your name properly!) and Jose & Maria (Olla Chicka!) from Spain. We all hit it off straight away and decided that instead of having a quiet one we'd push onto one of the local bar. The locals took an instant liking to us and insisted on showing us all their tattoo's which was pretty cool. Anyways after having a few we headed to bed and had NO chance of getting up at dawn to go up to Wat Doi Suthep as planned - which was all good anyway because it was pouring rain.
As per usual we were running
late the next morning (Pete needs atleast 1 hours lead time) and our ride show's up with four new people in it. Two Dane's (whose name's nobody could pronounce) and two Geezers from Manchester - Andy and John!
We all jump in the back of the truck and travel for an hour or so to our jungle drop off point (via the market for supplies). We trekked for about 30 minutes to a small village where we stopped for lunch. The village life is pretty simple. It comprised of about 8 people and 4 huts. The old man of the villiage (86) sits all day making fishing baskets from bamboo which we got to witness, a real art form! The women cook and clean and the younger guys go fishing.
So after having our energy food (rice + bannanas) we head off for our serious 3.5 hours of jungle trekking. As we walked it was sprinkling and a little slippery but not too bad. Our first stop was a little river where we all hung out for a short time.
Then we pushed on. As we were walking along (roughly following the river) there were all these
The River Stop
Mr Sun looking suspiciously at me! holes next to us. The assistant guide (Mr Sun) told us crabs lived there! Maybe it's just me but in the middle of the jungle, about 300kms from the sea is the last place I'd expect to find crabs. Mr Sun tried to catch some for eating but to no avail! DOH!
Our second stop was a small rice farm with a single shack, two rice fields and a couple of buffalo. Here they we're having BBQ'd frogs - which Mr Dong pushed upon us. Andy and I were the only two game enough to eat the frog (WHOLE!). It wasn't too bad actually, the legs were crunchy and nice, the head, once you got over it wasn't too bad either, it was just the guts that seemed to grow in your mouth with each bite that was difficult. Anyway after getting it down we realise that none of the locals were actually eating the head. Thanks for the "Heads Up" MR DONG!!
We then pushed on to our first waterfall - which certainly was no Niagra. But after 3 hours of trekking, soaking wet, covered in mud - it was just as good, if not better. We
Second Villiage
This is the second rice pattie hung out here for a while and then went onto the villiage. We pretty much acended the last 1000 metres in the last 30 minutes which was a killer!
The villiage that we stopped to stay at was one of the Karen tribes - which essentially means hill tribes. They originated in Burma but have been driven south into Thailand. These people have lived in the mountains for thousands of years and pretty much still do as their ancestors did. The virgins all wear white and the married women wear these fantastic coloured clothes. They believe in the mountain spirits and regularly make offerings to them. Until recently a lot of opium was consumed by these people to get in touch with the spirits, however due to pressure from the US there has been a massive government crackdown and many executions have occurred.
The villiage itself was simpiler than the previous with no electricity or running water. The shower consisted of a bamboo stick directing water from the waterfall, a similar mechanism also constituted the kitchen sinnk (lets hope this wasn't going on when we were downstream at the waterfall!)
So we set up shop here and
inevitably the Poms cracked the first beer and we followed suit shortly after. We had an early dinner (we were all starving) and Mr Dong begun handing out shots of the local rice wine. Mr Dong REALLY came out of his shell and proved to be absolutely golden. He is a crackup and amused us with lots of silly trick games that I can't WAIT to try on you all (Buddy Buddy Roof, Buddy Roof). We also got to meet Handsome Harry who owns the "hotel", as he put it, Bungalow as we'd put it. Harry was our "security" guard who was suppose to be checking for Black Widow spiders and Scorpions. However after being offered a drink Handsome went off and found his "lucky mug" and became more interested in trying his luck with the girlies than providing perimeter security!
We all started singing and started to learn the Elephant Song (Chang Chang Chang) which we all sung many times, each time totally wrong, for the rest of the trip! Afterwhich we played a truth type game where many questions about Harries Tash (Moustache) were asked!
Fast forward a few hours and the conversation of the frogs
The First Waterfall
Andy, Myself, Maria & Pete comes back up. Harry then decides that we should go off into the jungle (piss drunk and all) to catch a frog and eat it! So the group goes off in search of the elusive frog that was to be our midnight snack, no kebab shops here! Andy, into beer 10 by this stage (we kept a score board) went flying down this hill and into a big puddle.
Jose came through with the goods and caught the frog in the end! Upon returning to the table Harry, like any good celebrity chef, declares that he has some frog that he had prepared earlier. So why the search through the jungle, well for fun of course!
So we set up the bowl ontop of 4 Chang (meaning elephant) beers and using candles heated up the frogs. They were actually stewed in a lovely chilli & Soy sauce. Nobody was allowed to leave until we finished it. Harry kept the captured frog for later to cook on his 9 volt battery that powers his torch!
So after finishing off the frogs we all went to bed plum tuckered, but not before Andy kept us up (now at beer
463) with some drunken antics and pommy football songs!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.073s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 8; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0424s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb