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Published: November 26th 2006
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Little boy with traditional decoration
Picture taken at the border with Birma, Mae Sot. After leaving Bangkok, we went north towards Chiang Mai. But instead of making the trip straight up like most tourists do, we wanted to go for some adventure and nature first. Boy, did that turn out to be the best decision ever!
Half way to Chiang May we got off at Mae Sot, a little town at the border with Birma (Myanmar). Birma and Thailand haven't always been best friends in the past and Birmese people still try to cross the border and get into the richer Thailand. You can already notice a big difference in clothing and culture here. People put some kind of yellow chalk on their face as decoration (influenced by Indian culture somebody told us).
In Mae Sot we took the 'bus' to Umphang, where we would start our 5-day trek through the jungle. You couldn't really call it a bus as such, it was more like a little van/pick-up truck where we sat in the back part. When we got on, there was about 5 people on it and it was getting crowdy already. At a given moment, fifteen women on the street were waving their hands and made us stop. They were carrying
baskets on their heads and ran towards us so we figured they spotted white people and wanted to make a good sale. Can you imagine our surprise when every single one of them just got on the bus to ride with us! Along the way, more and more people got on. I tried to count once and we were 27 people and two chickens in this little minivan. People were standing on the back, hanging outside and sitting on the roof. Afterwards we heard that the official maximium is 15 people, but a van like this would carry at most 8 in Belgium. The bunch of women who got on at the same time, turned out to be Birmese refugees who lived in camps in Thailand. It was great to see though how close these people are and how physical contact for them is a lot more normal than in our western society. One woman was sleeping on my shoulder and another one who sat on the floor had her hand and head on my knee to get some sleep too. After this crazy 4 hour ride trough an amazing mountain landscape (1471 turns apparently! No idea which fool ever
Pe To Lo Su
Highest waterfall in Thailand. counted them), we arrived in Umphang where our jungle trek would start.
Umphang is a great town with only wooden pole houses. The next day our guide Kert awaited us for the first part of our hike: rafting. I'm sure you're all thinking about these big plastic boats now, but we did rafting in the real sence of the word this time. A couple of bamboo trees tied together were our rafts for the next 4,5 hour. We drifted through a breath taking valley with jungle vegetation, waterfalls and some snakes and monkeys. Afterwards, we changed our slippers for walking shoes and started an exhausting climb trough a bamboo forest, up to the top again. When we finally arrived at the place where we installed our tents, we were all out of breath and very sorry for our lazy lifestyle back home. Luckily enough there was a river near our tents so we could fresh up before hitting the tents early.
We had a horrible night on the world's thinnest matress (seriously!), but what we were about to see would more than cheer us up again. Kert took us (us, by the way, was a little group of
Khota
A house in this traditional bamboo village 4 persons only) for a short one hour walk to one of the highlights of our trip so far. Imagine coming out of the jungle and suddenly finding yourself in front of the highest waterfall in Thailand: the 200-300 meter high Pe To Lo Su. We stayed here for a while gasping at this amazing view and... I know I promised myself I (Nick) would never do it again, but we jumped from a 6 meter part of the waterfall. No broken teeth this time though.
Later we left for our second hike, this time towards Khota, a little bamboo village where people still lived in a very traditional way. There was one hut where we could hang our musquito nets and stay for the night. Our guide Kert came in this village ever since he was a child and showed us around. If we wanted to take a swim, there was a little river 10 minutes away he said. Once again, we couldn't believe our eyes when we arrived here. I'll just let the video clip (on top) speak for itself.
The next day, we were in for the final treat of our trek: we were picked
Kert a.k.a. Tarzan
Our guide preparing our dinner in Sotah. We got some less spiced rice, while he ate a frog he caught somewhere. up by two elephants and had a ride trough the jungle, to the real world again. Riding an elephant seems and is fun at first, but believe me, after a couple of hours you'll change your mind. After yet another crazy bus ride to Mae Sot again (this time, it was us who were sitting on the roof and enjoying the view) we finally enjoyed a good shower again, treated the uncountable musquito bites and got on the bus towards Chiang Mai, the former capital of the ancient kingdom Lanna.
More news about our stay in Chiang Mai later.
Nick & Steven
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Ruben
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ha de mannen, da ziet er bangelijk uit he. En thoone, da fris kopke is echt wel neig. Die thaise grieten moete van u afslaan zeker! Gistere afscheidsfeestje van de Backer gehad, was neig ma de barry's hebben u toch gemist zenne. En in de Farao zitten ze met nen overstock Duvel sinds u vertrek. Ma soit, pakt het er goe van en brengt mij zo een thaike mee als souvenir. ciao