"Leave nothing but footprints, Take nothing but pictures, kill nothing but time"
With an early start and our backpackers packed for 3 days (yes mum tried to sneak in her CK moisturiser and seeing Bex and mine's disgusted faces took it out) we headed south east from Chiang Mai towards the boarder with Myanmar in our minivan for 3 hours. Along the way we stopped off at a local market to get the food we would need for the trip. After pausing for a bite to eat at a street food place we started our trek.
We walked for about 3 hours through beautiful scenery. Up to the top of one mountain, down to a river, where cows with bells round their necks were cooling off. Then it was up one very "gradual" hill as Pot (our tour guide) described it, I'm not sure the rest of us agreed. Pot told us lots of interesting things throughout the walk and pointed out loads of different trees, plants and animals. Down by the river we saw thousands of daddy long legs all climbing over each other, it was crazy.
The destination at the top of the "gradual" hill was the Karen village and where we would be staying for the night. We met our home stay family, a lovely welcoming old couple in the village with a daughter her husband and gorgeous little grandson. we had brought sweets for the kids in the village so we went out to explore and met the villages. They all desperately wanted sweets there is no 7/11 in the mountains.
We could see many western influences in the village, and they were obviously not fazed to see us, but they still had many of their traditions. The older women in the village still wore the traditional dress and lots of jewellery. The way in which they prepared their food and lived is also still traditional, like collecting the water and cooking on a fire, and preparing the vegetables. The government now have a bigger influence on the tribe than ever before. For example they have given them a solar panel per house and this has been used to help light the house after dark. There restrictions on when they can burn their fields in order to prepare them for growing rice again. They also get visited by a doctor once a month to check who is pregnant, had a baby or old and sick. I guess all these are good things, however I can't help keep thinking they survived perfectly well before all these western influences and where very happy and content.
Dinner was a delicious green curry, with pumpkin, and spicy fried fish skins with cabbage as a snack before dinner. During dinner we taught Greg and Verona (the other two members of our group) that we always do best bits and worse bits of our day when on holiday. Greg renamed them the pits and peaks! Due to the lack of lighting and electricity, as the sun goes to bed the village tends to as well. Our mosquito nets were sent up on the sort of balcony on the bamboo hut and the men where taken to sleep in another hut near by. Although with the rice wine continuing to flow they carried on drinking for a while after dark. Us girls huddled down under the stars hoping to get a good nights sleep on the bamboo floor.
We woke up to the sound of the noisy chickens and the sun rising. After breakfast (fried rice) we explored the village a little more and then started our next hike. This one wasn't nearly as bad as the day before as it was a "gradual" slope down to the river, of which we (Bexs and I - check out the selfie pic!) ran down at points too! Once we reached the river we stopped for lunch, noodles which had been prepared in the morning and wrapped in banana leaves. Three men from the village (Lilly, Nikki and Peedontcare - renamed "He don't care") along with Pot helped us along the trail and carried food for us too. They also made us chopsticks out of Bamboo.
After lunch we had a leisurely stroll along the river for an hour or so climbing along the rocks and walking in the river at points too. We then reached the Bamboo camp site where we would be spending our second night in the jungle.
By the hut two rivers met so it was a chance for us to cool off and shower for the first time! It was a lovely chilled afternoon being in the river, sitting contemplating life and then starting to prepare dinner. It was here that we learnt how many uses bamboo can have, the following were made out of bamboo by the village men and Dad as he wanted a go too. Plates, cups, bowls, chopsticks, spoons, knives, pots for cooking rice and the hut we were sleeping in, oh and don't forget the shot glasses for the rum!
That night we had another delicious spread of food, enough to feed the 5000. We had even less light this night as there was no solar panel at the hut, so once the candle made from bees wax which we had found on a tree the day before had run out it and all the rum was gone it was time for bed.
The next day we woke to the sound of the men lighting a fire and starting to cook breakfast. We had Watermelon jam, which was cooked on the fire in bamboo so was the egg in bamboo accompanied by toast and coffee. Pot had been out frog fishing in the night, so I got my first experience of frogs legs. Yum!
It was then time for our final hike. We walked up the small river, weaving in and out of rocks and through the stream. We stopped and Bexs, Dad, Greg and Pot decided to cool off in the stream by jumping in to a deep part. After about an hour or more we reached the bat cave.
A 150 meter long pitch black cave with the stream running through it. We had small torches and three torches of fire to light the way. We ventured in, treading carefully (I nearly stood on a crab) to avoid rocks and deep parts of the stream, we saw a bright green dangerous snake curled up in the rocks and quickly hurried past. when we looked up we could see many bats sleeping peacefully at the top of the cave. Although one did want to say hello and flew right by my head.
After we had escaped the cave it was a long, steep, hot climb to the top of the mountain leaving the cool river far behind us. It was touch and go for a moment as to whether we would all make it but we survived and reached the top just about without fainting!
It was then time to start our journey back to Chiang Mai. We were picked up and jumped in to the back of a pick up truck to drive back to where we had lunch on the first day and our minivan was waiting for us to return us to a shower and bed.
It was a fantastic experience meeting the Karen people and finding out about there lives, it was totally unforgettable and we will all take away such awesome memories of the trip.
With Love from Thailand xxx
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