Having packed and checked out I went for breakfast, all included in the price.
Fresh fruit followed by an omelette, how healthy am I ?
I have to say this has been a lovely hotel, excellent, attentive staff, who can't do enough. I will be back!
I was to be picked up at 8.30 so after breakfast sat in the lobby, If I have one complaint about the hotel it is the lobby seats are not comfortable ;-)
Ha ha, sat in the uncomfortable lobby seats, they are playing 'the hills are alive with the sound of music' over the PA. There is a certain irony there!
Shortly after 8.39 the transport arrived, a pick up truck, jumped in the back and off were went. For the trip I had four companions, a couple of guys from Denmark and
a couple from Austin, Texas. We went through the formal introductions. The usual ice breaker is 'where have you been, where are you going...'
Our first stop was the tourist police, apparently they need to understand who's going where safety purposes. The volunteers tourist policeman on this occasion happened to be British. He gave us a formal brief explaining the do's and don'ts putting particular focus on the drugs issue saying 'if you get caught with drugs in Thailand you won't see your country again - sobering!!
After the briefing we were on our way. We stopped off at a local market which was clearly partly set up trekkers, selling rain coats, torches, water etc. The same market also houses the 'local' produce, it was interesting to wander around!
Our second stop on the two day trip was the elephant park. The older elephants, ( the oldest one here was 35 years old ) are in reality 're-deployees'. As the logging and deforestation banning programme took hold, they were essentially unemployed. The creative solution was to use them to add value to the tourist industry, consequently numerous locations have have sprung up across Northern Thailand. The alternative would have been much less attractive !
I had an elephant to myself ( obviously with driver!). We set out on an hours trek through the jungle, it was a fantastic experience. These beautiful creatures, sure footed and majestic actually seemed to enjoy what they were doing.The mahout was clearly on the same wavelength at them, they stopped to strip foliage when they were peckish and were put under no pressure at all.
At the end of the ride my mahout jumped off, I gave him the camera and he let be 'drive' this majestic beast the last 100 metres while he took photographs. I did have reservation about how they would turn out at I though the camera was set on automatic focus and this little lad was busily focusing the camera manually.I was pleasantly surprised to find that he had reset to manual! The photo still turned out crap though.
Given the steering wheel.
Andrew with a year old baby. This little guy was prone to head butting ( the elephant, not Andrew )
The elephants in the camp were of all ages, the oldest being 35 and the youngest just one month, a proper Dumbo!
After the elephants were were back into the truck for a short drive and a very basic but tasty lunch at a roadside cafe. Boiled rice, a potato thai curry and cantaloupe to finish.There we met our 'Karen' guide who would be taking us trekking during the afternoon. His name was unpronounceable but he was quickly nicknamed smokey.
After the elephant rides and stroking, feeding them most of us were feeling a tad 'grubby' The first stop on the trek was a water hole and a beautiful tumbling waterfall. It was just so inviting, the water was lovely. It was just like the Bounty advert!
From the waterfall we were faced with around 2 hours trekking to the village.
I suppose I should have worked have worked it out, the clues in the name, if you go to visit hill tribes, there is a pretty good change a hill is going to be involved somewhere along the way. Moving deeper into the jungle, it wasn't massively steep but in those temperatures I was sweating buckets and the heart beat was a little quick.
Ever resourceful 'smoky' spotted some very tasty looking mushrooms and in his bag they went. Around 30 minutes later he had sold them to a fellow villager for 100 baht.
The Viking guys were funny, Morgan had struck up a great rapport with smokey and they made a good double act keeping is amused as we made our way to the village.
We made the village at around 5.00pm. The accommodation was basic, a mat on a bamboo raised floor, All in one room, blankets were provided.
The Karen began to move into Thailand around the 17th century and occur in large numbers in the western part of Northern Thailand, in particular on the ranges west and south of Doi Inthanon. The main groups in Thailand are White Karen composed of the Skaw and the Pwo sub groups.
The Karen live in villages of around 25 houses raised on stilts. The villages tend to cluster. Each household consists of the parents and their unmarried children. Married daughters and their families may also live in the same house. The highest authority is the village priest who runs the village along with the elders.
The Karen have rituals to live harmoniously with the "Lord of the Land and Water", as well as with nature spirits in the rocks, trees, water and mountains that surround them. They also have guardian spirits and believe in the soul.
Their desire for harmony with nature may partly account for why the Karen have evolved the most ecologically sound system of swidden agriculture. They use a system of rotation over a large area of land and do not cut all the large trees down when they clear a plot.
Around 40 families lived in the village, about 100 people. Charming, friendly people. The usual sales team arrived. I'm not sure if was a contrived part of their sales strategy but all four of the. Had exactly the same products and of course, it would be massively unfair to buy from one and not the other..... Very smart.
Morgan and Pi
Dinner at 6.00am was again simple but very very tasty, it was pissing it down and he'd been since we arrives so the idea of a campfire was shelved. Instead, around the communal table and chatting. Andrew and Danielle were very interesting, Danielle had just graduated but Andrew was in VC finance and had just finished working on a project setting up a company in South America doing stem cell surgery. Really interesting smart cookie.
These sorts of trips as much about learning about your fellow travellers as they are about learning about about the locals. I have to say I had a very enjoyable and informative evening chatting to both Danielle and Andrew, great guys
I shall call the Danes the Vikings at the risk of misspelling their names, Rune and Morgan ? They were great fun, very funny the younger guy had just finished his education and the older guy was a 'brickie'. Both had a fantastic sense of humour and the banter with 'smokey' was very funny. He was great fun too.
For any youngster travelling is a great opportunity to develop social skills. I wish my oldest niece would do it. My sister had tried to persuade be to join me but she declined. Cross culture, race integration is a great education!
The Vikings turned in quite early but I stayed up chatting then to bed. Not the most comfortable night but I did sleep reasonably well.
There is a view that these sort of 'events' trekking into a hill tribe village are a little contrived. I asked Smokey how he felt having complete strangers coming to stay with his family, he clearly loved it. It is also a great way of supporting the local economy.
In the morning we met other locals including 'buffalo bill' he was an autistic chap and it was really quite moving to see how the rest of the villages protected him. Ty new guide for the trek down from the village explained that they all looked out for him and had recently taken him into Chiang Mai as a holiday to enjoy the cuisine.
Great community.
Despite the fact that this is only a small village, there is a school which we visited after breakfast of bread, eggs and coffee.
I was leaving my travelling companions as they were on a two night trek. We exchanged emails address's and blog addresses so we could follow each others progress. I said my goodbyes and then made my way with my new guide to meet with some other trekkers for the two and a half hour walk back to civilisation, mostly downhill. Andrew, you are right, it is tougher going downhill than uphill...
I smiled to myself as I thought of 'the sound of music' in the hotel before I left and humming 'high on a hill is a lonely goatherd. You need to have the sure footing of a mountain goat here..
Despite covering myself with Deet and the mosquito nets in the village I had still managed to collect a couple of pesky nips from the bastards. One on the bottom of my foot. Why do they always do that?
The walk down the hill gave some fantastic views of the jungle wildlife and countryside, squadrons of huge dragonflies, massive butterflies and more ants than you can shake a stick at.
At the end of the trek I said goodbye to my trekking companions a couple from Belgium and a couple from Slovenia . My guide pointed me in the direction of a scary Thai lady who would take me to the lunch location and pick up the Bamboo raft to go further down the river.
The Thai lady,who looked like she wouldn't have been out of place in 'prisoner cell block' took me to the truck, pointed for me to get into the back then bounced me around for 10 minutes practically breaking my ass.
Lunch was pretty much the same as the day before. I met my new guide who, after lunch loaded us into a minibus for the short drive to the river. I has obviously taken someone's seat (why are people so territorial) a Colombian spent the 20 minute journey glaring and sitting there with a face like a slapped arse..
The rafting was great fun, about an hour down river. The rain the previous evening had brought the river level up and it was flowing quite fast. The rafts are basically 16 metre bamboo tied together. If is driven rather like a Cambridge punt. All I needed was a blazer and a boater hat!
At the end of the trip I was picked up my yet another guide and whisked back to my hotel.
I have to congratulate the tour company, there are some quite challenging logistics getting everyone to where they should be.
I must have looked a sorry sight walking into the hotel, dirty, sweaty, I looked like I had pissed in my cargo pants as I had put them on top of my swimming trunks.
First stop shower, second stop Laundry, third stop DHL, I was starting to hoard stuff and need to send some of the purchases back home... Oh, and a massage too
A big bag of washing, about a fiver, ready at midday. The shipping costs were quite expensive but I needed to create some space. It would have to be done, probably not for the first time. I had a long way to go!
After my chores I headed down the road for a beer, I decided my hair need a trim, I was starting to look like an action man with eagle eyes!!
Another £2.00 haircut later I headed back to the hotel. As I walked past the taxi drivers outside the hotel there were hoots of approval for the new haircut.
In the evening I had decided to go into the old town for a spot of dinner, stopping at a massage parlour just outside the hotel I had a foot and leg massage, brilliant. This time I had a young Thai lad as a masseuse. The owner came to have a chat, he had lived in Bournemouth for a few years.
Tuktuk to town, a nice dinner of Thai curry and rice ( for a change ), a stop off at the night market and a beer at the night market.
As I was sat people watching a smily chap walker up to the Bar. I've now got into the habit of saying hello and smiling to everyone, it's amazing how many people you can get chatting to. This smily chap was French, we started chatting and he sat with me for an hour. He was on a 12 month trip. He had been somewhere on my bucket list so I was going to find out more.
You can travel from Europe to Singapore on the train. I had looked at this as it seems a great way to do the journey, and not that expensive. My new french friend had started in Moscow, travelling to Utan Battar, the capital of Mongolia and then through China to Beijing. Sounded like a fab trip...
Tomorrow I leave Thailand. It is a fascinating country, exceeded expectations. I will be back in January to do a bit more travelling in the north.
I leave for the airport tomorrow at 1.00pm
Next stop Laos.
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Location:Su Thep,Thailand
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