mountains and mountains of fun
Well I survived a two day trek - just about.
Gemma and I signed up to a company called Back Trax on Friday with two Dutch girls we had met at Meo's restaurant. We prepared ourselves for the worst after several bad days of rain.
But Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny and very very hot. We were left wondering if trekking would still be a problem - but because of the heat not the rain.
But by the time we arrived at the villages near Soppong (about an hour drive from Pai), it was cloudy and less humid.
Our guides were Nan and Prucha who both spoke good English. Prucha is from a Karen hilltribe village and Nan had a wealth of knowledge about the three different tribes we were to visit - Karen, Lahu and Lisu.
The trek started off with a punishing uphill climb up a dirt track between corn fields, rice fields and soy bean crops.
I was beginning to think it had not been such a good idea but one look at Gemma, Annouke and Isis's faces showed they too were feeling the strain.
We stopped at the top of the mountain at a Lahu village and sat in the school playground to recoup for a few minutes. Then it was off again down a steep, slippery path through a corn field and down into the forest. Here, it was much cooler under the shade of the trees and very pretty as the path followed a stream with little waterfalls.
We crisscrossed over the stream, using stones to jump across or being handled over makeshift bridges (logs) by the guides.
We stopped for a quick break and had a snack of sticky rice with custard (amazing) and then it was a steep uphill climb for about forty five minutes to the top. There we rested and had lunch of fried rice and fried egg which prucha had been carrying in a basket on his back, along with bananas. It was greasy but so so good.
Shortly after, we continued our walk, passing through a Karen village and then on through woods - where it started to rain.
This was monsoon style rain which no amount of tree cover could protect us from. Even with our rain jackets on, we were drenched.
We slipped and slided our way towards the Lahu village which would be our resting place for the night, gritting our teeth and praying the sun came out to dry us off.
Eventually the rain eased off and about an hour after the first drops of rain, we arrived at the village. We washed our mud cake shoes in a stream and laid our sodden clothing out to dry as the sun made an effort to shine.
Everything in our backpacks was drenched. We felt pretty miserable until tea and biscuits materialised...
We sat and chatted and tried to get warm and dry while they cooked us dinner.
The village was made up of just three families who remain here to look after their animals. They have cows and buffalo nearby and also crops. Most families grow just enough rice and corn to feed their family and animals for the year. Because they harvest just once a year, it means they have to calculate how much they will need when planting.
Most villagers move around frequently because rice can only be grown in the same spot for three years and must have four years to breathe but the Thai government are now saying villagers should stay put.
The family we were staying with also had chickens and pigs - which they mostly use as currency and only occasionally eat. They are Lahu people and are animists - believing everything has a spirit.
The hut was quite large and raised on stilts. Underneath, the pigs and chickens live with the stray dogs which they keep around for hunting. The hut was split in three with a room off to the right, an open communal space in the centre and a large room to the left, which serves as a kitchen and bedroom and indoor communal space.
They have a concrete block in this room with a fire laid above it. Our beds were four mats with two flea-infested rough blankets. Thank goodness I had brought my sheet!
The hut was made from bamboo with palm leaf roof. At night, you could hear the pigs squealing loudly, the dogs fighting and cockerels crowing. Not the most peaceful night ever.
Dinner was pork (poor piggies below) with a variety of vegetables and different sauces and rice. We sat and chatted again and when it grew dark, went inside to sit with candles while Prucha showed us some magic tricks, logic puzzles and we drank beer. It was then early to bed for us - only for us to be frequently woken by animal sounds, scurrying footsteps of rats perhaps and the fear, for me anyway, of spiders.
We woke early as the owners get up to feed the animals and head out to the fields around 6am. We dozed for a few hours and then had breakfast of pancakes with bananas followed by mashed potato with garlic and onion.
We set off again with wet shoes and damp clothes but we relieved to see it was dry and warm - this meant we could cross the river and go to a waterfall rather than taking a similar route to the one we walked on Saturday.
At some point during the morning I pulled a muscle in my thigh - a slight twinge at first - it was aching by the end of the day.
We walked for about an hour to the waterfall and jumped in and swam for a while - good after a lack of shower and the smells of the previous day's walking!
We then had to cross the river over a very large and very high log - half way across I lost my bottle slightly - it was a very high log! Prucha had to come and rescue me.
The walk took us through very different scenery - forests with huge-leaved trees, along paths next to rivers (I fell in at the end of the day - whoops!), next to lush green rice fields, up rocky mountain paths and down winding dirt tracks. We pushed our way through brambles and wandered through sweetcorn fields where the crops were 10 feet high.
We were very lucky with the weather - it was cloudy enough to not be too hot but the pace was pretty relentless. Afterwards they said we were good, fast walkers - but we thought we had to go at that pace!
As we walked along by the river on the last stretch of the walk, the sun came out as if to reward us for our hard effort! We were muddy, sore and, in my case, limping and sopping wet, but we had a brilliant time getting that way.
Gemma and I signed up to a company called Back Trax on Friday with two Dutch girls we had met at Meo's restaurant. We prepared ourselves for the worst after several bad days of rain.
But Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny and very very hot. We were left wondering if trekking would still be a problem - but because of the heat not the rain.
But by the time we arrived at the villages near Soppong (about an hour drive from Pai), it was cloudy and less humid.
Our guides were Nan and Prucha who both spoke good English. Prucha is from a Karen hilltribe village and Nan had a wealth of knowledge about the three different tribes we were to visit - Karen, Lahu and Lisu.
The trek started off with a punishing uphill climb up a dirt track between corn fields, rice fields and soy bean crops.
I was beginning to think it had not been such a good idea but one look at Gemma, Annouke and Isis's faces showed they too were feeling the strain.
We stopped at the top of the mountain at a Lahu village and sat in the school playground to recoup for a few minutes. Then it was off again down a steep, slippery path through a corn field and down into the forest. Here, it was much cooler under the shade of the trees and very pretty as the path followed a stream with little waterfalls.
We crisscrossed over the stream, using stones to jump across or being handled over makeshift bridges (logs) by the guides.
We stopped for a quick break and had a snack of sticky rice with custard (amazing) and then it was a steep uphill climb for about forty five minutes to the top. There we rested and had lunch of fried rice and fried egg which prucha had been carrying in a basket on his back, along with bananas. It was greasy but so so good.
Shortly after, we continued our walk, passing through a Karen village and then on through woods - where it started to rain.
This was monsoon style rain which no amount of tree cover could protect us from. Even with our rain jackets on, we were drenched.
We slipped and slided our way towards the Lahu village which would be our resting place for the night, gritting our teeth and praying the sun came out to dry us off.
Eventually the rain eased off and about an hour after the first drops of rain, we arrived at the village. We washed our mud cake shoes in a stream and laid our sodden clothing out to dry as the sun made an effort to shine.
Everything in our backpacks was drenched. We felt pretty miserable until tea and biscuits materialised...
We sat and chatted and tried to get warm and dry while they cooked us dinner.
The village was made up of just three families who remain here to look after their animals. They have cows and buffalo nearby and also crops. Most families grow just enough rice and corn to feed their family and animals for the year. Because they harvest just once a year, it means they have to calculate how much they will need when planting.
Most villagers move around frequently because rice can only be grown in the same spot for three years and must have four years to breathe but the Thai government are now saying villagers should stay put.
The family we were staying with also had chickens and pigs - which they mostly use as currency and only occasionally eat. They are Lahu people and are animists - believing everything has a spirit.
The hut was quite large and raised on stilts. Underneath, the pigs and chickens live with the stray dogs which they keep around for hunting. The hut was split in three with a room off to the right, an open communal space in the centre and a large room to the left, which serves as a kitchen and bedroom and indoor communal space.
They have a concrete block in this room with a fire laid above it. Our beds were four mats with two flea-infested rough blankets. Thank goodness I had brought my sheet!
The hut was made from bamboo with palm leaf roof. At night, you could hear the pigs squealing loudly, the dogs fighting and cockerels crowing. Not the most peaceful night ever.
Dinner was pork (poor piggies below) with a variety of vegetables and different sauces and rice. We sat and chatted again and when it grew dark, went inside to sit with candles while Prucha showed us some magic tricks, logic puzzles and we drank beer. It was then early to bed for us - only for us to be frequently woken by animal sounds, scurrying footsteps of rats perhaps and the fear, for me anyway, of spiders.
We woke early as the owners get up to feed the animals and head out to the fields around 6am. We dozed for a few hours and then had breakfast of pancakes with bananas followed by mashed potato with garlic and onion.
We set off again with wet shoes and damp clothes but we relieved to see it was dry and warm - this meant we could cross the river and go to a waterfall rather than taking a similar route to the one we walked on Saturday.
At some point during the morning I pulled a muscle in my thigh - a slight twinge at first - it was aching by the end of the day.
We walked for about an hour to the waterfall and jumped in and swam for a while - good after a lack of shower and the smells of the previous day's walking!
We then had to cross the river over a very large and very high log - half way across I lost my bottle slightly - it was a very high log! Prucha had to come and rescue me.
The walk took us through very different scenery - forests with huge-leaved trees, along paths next to rivers (I fell in at the end of the day - whoops!), next to lush green rice fields, up rocky mountain paths and down winding dirt tracks. We pushed our way through brambles and wandered through sweetcorn fields where the crops were 10 feet high.
We were very lucky with the weather - it was cloudy enough to not be too hot but the pace was pretty relentless. Afterwards they said we were good, fast walkers - but we thought we had to go at that pace!
As we walked along by the river on the last stretch of the walk, the sun came out as if to reward us for our hard effort! We were muddy, sore and, in my case, limping and sopping wet, but we had a brilliant time getting that way.
posted by charlie at 8:26 pm
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