I had gone to bed pretty early the night before so rose around 7am and headed over to Starbucks (yes! I spotted that out instantly!), then to a local 5-star hotel to use their Internet. I needed to secure my sleeping accommodations in Cambodia still! An hour of Internet time and then met the guy at the hotel who gave me a list of stuff to pack. I rented a sleeping bag, bought some toilet paper for the trip and packed lightly for a few days – afterall, I was going to be in the jungle, staying with village people and so I couldn’t expect to be too plush in where I was going to be staying at! By 9:30-10am, the truck was there to pick me up. I was the last in the stop to hop on board. On the trip with me were 8 other people – Tony & Netta, a couple from Israel; Kim & Lindsy, a couple from New Zealand; Veronika and Katerina, cousins from the Czech Republic; and Camilo and Diani, brother and sister from Colombia. And then there was me – good ‘ol California girl with her designer jeans on… You could say I felt just a little out of place.We stopped at a little market on our way to the mountains of Pai to get food for our lunch and dinner that night. The drive from there was about an hour, and we arrived at our first tribe, LISU, for lunch. As soon as we were done eating, we were bombarded by the local villagers trying to sell us their handmade goods. It was kinda uneasy – it was like they hovered around us and just waited for us to take our last bite before they swarmed in and started saying “Look, Buy” and “shopping”. We survived and started our trekk from there. Uh-oh… I thought I would have a chance to change… guess not! We trekked up and down the mountain side for 2 ½ hours – I thought doing Runyon Canyon was hard, jeesh! That was nothing compared to this! But I did it, backpack on at all times, keeping in the middle of everyone, and in designer jeans at that! We stopped at LAHU village pretty early, around 3:30pm. This is where we were going to be staying for the evening. Looking at where we would sleep, it was like summer camp back when I was living in Colorado… well, maybe not as nice, considering our toilet was the hole in the ground and our shower was the river next to us. But we had mosquito nets – yeay! Everyone was very friendly, talkative and full of questions about eachothers travels. We were learning from each other all sorts of things – cultures, experiences, future desires, etc. A few of us even said that the more we travel, the more knowledge we gain and yet at the same time, the more we also feel ignorant about the world and the people that are out there. We ate a good dinner cooked by our travel guide, Dang. It was very cold up in the mountain so we all packed on extra clothes and sat by the fire that Dang made us, telling stores, singing songs from our countries, and learning a new Thai one too – the Elephant song. It was very amusing hearing all of us learn the “Chong, chong, chong, chong, chong” song… (chong in thai means elephant). We were all pretty tired, and since there wasn’t a ton we could do in the dark, headed off to bed by 8:30pm. The bed was hard and the noise of the water flowing down the river was ever so loud. I put my ear plugs in my ear, slipped the sleeping bag over my head and drifted off to sleep.
OMG! I think I woke up like 3 or 4 times in the middle of the night, FREEZING cold! I had just one thin little blanket on me, and my sleeping bag was made of a thin polyester so there was nothing really keeping me warm. I had 2 pairs of socks on, 2 t-shirts and a zipper jacket but damn was I cold. I did what I could to keep warm. Finally got up around 8:30am to some coffee and tea and a hardboiled egg with 30 gazillion pieces of toast for breakfast. I could’ve used an extra egg instead of all the extra toast! Luckily I snagged a few bananas from lunch the day before which I was saving to eat during the trekk – I knew I wouldn’t be eating much in each meal anyhow. Today was our elephant ride! The elephants arrived at our village about 10:15am. There were 4 of them. Tony & Netta were nice enough to let me ride with them (remember, I was the odd ball out when it came to having a partner). They are such nice people – actually, everyone was so very nice and thoughtful of each other. We were all taking pictures and joking around, and trying to sing our elephant song we had learned the night before. I was so looking forward to this elephant ride too! Ours was named “Koh” and she was a very hungry girl – stopping many times along the walk to rip branches off trees or from bushes, stripping the leaves off with her mouth and trunk. Tony rode on her head first with Netta and I in the carriage seat. Then we switched and I was loving every part of it! She was so gentle and precious – I had my legs behind each ear and I literally could feel her grasping me as she bent down to take her food. We rode for about 45min I guess, and then they dropped us off further into the jungle to continue on with our trekk by foot.
We walked for about an hour to a waterfall, unfortunately it wasn’t one we could swim in, but we were told we could shower there if we wanted (hhmm, was that a hint since none of us showered in the river at our village? Haha)… The water was nice and helped cool us down since the up and down hill trekking with our back packs in the rain forest was pretty hot! We continued on and walked another hour to a lookout point. Here we stopped and had lunch. Dang made us chopsticks out of bamboo, and had ramen noodles in banana leaves for us to eat. It was pretty neat, and we were all hungry! More walking continued – up and down the hillside, through streams, through the forest, and along side farm areas. We eventually stopped at DORONG village to stay for the night. This was a step up in where we stayed the night before… still a hole in the ground for the toilet, but it was a little more luxury with 2 toilets, and a closed off shower area. We were all feeling pretty grungy and decided to take turns in the shower… but the later it started to get, the colder it was getting too, and all we had was a faucet providing us cold river water. I hurried in the shower, washed my hair and all the sweat off of me. I couldn’t help but think about where I was at and what I was doing. I recalled thinking the first day as I was going up hills that I was insane to be doing this, and that I was not going to make it through. These kids were younger than me and they all had someone to support them and lean on. But I was so proud of myself for what I had accomplished so far. By day 2 I thought, there was no way I was going to give up, I pushed myself even more because I was here to prove something to myself. And I wasn’t alone like I thought… I had this group with me who was supportive and helpful and we were all leaning on each other, one way or another. I could feel that my anxiety was absent and I was really comfortable with everyone there. My pedicure was really jacked up though! Haha… I finished my ice cold shower, with the pigs in the background and chickens up in the tree. We had dinner and then the local girls in the village danced and sang for us. We sang back to them too – jeremiah was a bullfrog, as well as our attempt to recall the chong chong elephant song. They knew it better than us though and finished it off much easier than we had started! We all warmed up by the fire again and played the guitar and asked Dang a lot of questions about his own village he was from, as well as many questions we had about the Thai culture. It was about 10pm and I was ready for bed – yep, a late night in the jungle! Since there were more mattresses and blankets than people – I doubled up. I was not about to freeze my booty off like I did the night before.
4:30 in the morning and “cock-a-doodle-doo”!! Ear plugs drowned it out, thank goodness, but it was still there. And it wasn’t just one rooster, it was about 8 of them, all taking turns with their wake up alarm in different parts of the village. Next came the oinking of the pig right outside of our cabin/hut. We all managed to sleep in a bit at least though, waking up about 9am. We opened the door and immediately stepped out into a sea of women and their homemade goods – here we go again! We were being watched like vultures as we ate our breakfast… they surrounded us from the back, from the front and definitely on the sides where they knew we’d have to go to the bathroom or back to our sleeping area to gather up our belongings. I felt a little bad and bought a handmade scarf from one of the ladies… I kinda felt bad for talking her down some too, but hey, she was starting off pretty high! She knew what she was doing! D ang told us today’s walk would be pretty easy. We walked through a few other villages, taking pictures of the local people and children. Their faces could tell so much and even though they were curious, or maybe annoyed at us, they smiled with big grins and warm eyes. We stopped for soup before the last part of our trip – a bamboo raft ride down the river. We had 3 to a raft and local guys helping to guide us down the current. By the middle of the trip we were hopping on each others rafts, splashing & making each other wet, knocking people off with the bamboo sticks, and just having a good, fun time! A few of the rafts had so many people on it that it started to tip over and sink… all we could do was laugh. It was a great way to end the trip. We all enjoyed each other’s company so much, it was kinda sad to say goodbye. We piled into the back of the pick up and prepared for the hour and a half ride back to Chiang Mai. We shared email address with everyone so we could exchange pictures, and I was the first to hop out. I said goodbye and was sad that I was leaving this new group of friends. I got some pointers on Cambodia and even gave pointers to others on Bangkok and Kho Samui. And now here I was, back to being by myself again and I was feeling a lot better about it. I was so glad I did the trekk. If not for the experience and learning of the culture and village people, but also for the accomplishment I felt. I was looking forward to my next adventure, but I was also going to miss the people I’d just met.
