21 December 1998…Ain’t it funny to find Bangkok a return to comfort and “Western” civilization? Pizza Hut, air-conditioned taxis, no cows wandering the city streets…Kathmandu is the only major city I’ve ever been in where there’s no McDonald’s (God save them from that anyway, and probably the beef thing wouldn’t go over so well with the sacred cows…)
Saying goodbye to Moti at the airport this morning, he presented me with a “Didi Yak” (Sister Yak) t-shirt as he had given Mom an “Ama Yak” one. Draped a white silk kata around my neck and tied it—a melancholy settled over both of us, and sitting here in a busy Bangkok café….is lonely.
Anyway, I found the place I couldn’t find last time I was here in Bangkok—fortunately or not, because it’s a dive. My room’s big enough to turn around in and I’m afraid what might crawl into my bag when the lights are off. Jessie arrives tomorrow night.
25 December…”And so this is Christmas…” A ten-hour train ride finally landed us in Chiang Mai last night. We arrived at our guest hous to find a big Thai buffet spread for Christmas Eve, Thai dancing performed by two of the daughters who run the place, raucous, laugh-inducing relay games for the “farang” (foreigners) to participate in, and to top it off, all of us, Thais and travellers, sitting around long tables singing Christmas carols—a nice welcome and a touch of holiday spirit after all.
Tomorrow we’re off on a three-day trek, up into the mountains and jungle with visits to hilltribe villages, elephant rides and bamboo rafting—yeeha!
27 December…We were driven northwest of Chiang Mai, about a 3-1/2 hour trip in the back of a covered, open-air, mini-truck. Jessie had been feeling strange since breakfast and by the time we sat and had lunch near the start of the trail, she wasn’t looking good. ½ hour into it she started wretching, to the applause and congratulations of the rest of the group: 7 Americans (four VERY green LA boys and a stiff Jewish guy from New York), the two of us, a Danish couple, an Aussie couple, and a Kiwi. Our guides, Sawat and Et…Sawat spent time in the back of the line with us, making Jessie laugh even while she hurled. At the start of the trek, he had pointed out the valley and mountains in the distance—just beyond the mountains, only 20 km away, the Myanmar border (many refugees have made their way into the hilltribe villages of Thailand).
The trek yesterday was only 2-1/2 hours but Jessie puked a grand total of 4-1/2 times (much to the further applause and congratulations of everyone in the group). She definitely needed to puke, but I think the pages of possible deadly diseases and illnesses she’s read about in the guidebook added to her panic. Everybody assured her she’d be alright (sounded better coming from them, not me). It’s her first trip out of the States, so the jetlag, the food, the smells combined (and if you’ve been to Bangkok, you know which smells I’m referring to…) The things you get used to travelling. Maybe next time she’ll be able to recognize it for what it is.
We arrived in a Lahu village, bamboo thatch huts and wild pigs running and squealing, more chickens than children (and there are a lot of children)…We settled into our accommodation, a wide bamboo hut built on stilts, a big space for guests with a raised platform for our mattresses to be laid out side-by-side, mosquito nets draped around and down over the beds.
The kids turned out to be pretty aggressive, asking for things and actually yanking on my braids and beads (got my whole head braided in Bangkok). There is no schooling for most hilltribe kids, but every tribe has its own language, village shaman, traditional teachings and craft specialties. The Lahu are originally from Tibet, they and many of the other tribes having come to Thailand only in the last 100-400 years. There has been a recent effort to integrate them more fully into Thai society, to move them closer to cities as their increasing numbers have put added strain on the northern Thailand ecology (deforestation, slash and burn farming, etc.
In other cases, young girls, especially virgins, are wooed away from the villages and from their families under the guise of work opportunities as waitresses, garmen workers, etc., but end up being sold into prostitution.
Sawat and Et served up a dinner of rice and vegetables and tofu—Jessie was feeling a little better so she was able to eat something, and soon after dinner, the village women presented us with their wares, Lahu caps made of silk and cotton patchwork with beaded decorations and dangling beads as fringe, cotton friendship bracelets decorated with round white seeds. Purchase of the items helps their local economy some and breaks the ice between us. Afterwards we all sat around a bonfire and the kids gathered to sing Lahu songs, as well as just about every children’s song in English we could think of. It all started to feel less-than-authentic when they initiated the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine”. But we all had a good time, sending them into hysterical fits as we performed the Hokey-Pokey. Everybody was pretty much in bed by 9, except for a few from our group that went off to smoke opium with our guide and some men from the village. (useless information for the reader: “thank you” in Lahu—“obuttja”)
Day Two—Trekking…Trudging through elephant grass and into the leafy shadow of bamboo forest, up and down, up and down, fording streams and finally to a spot where we crossed a stream by bamboo raft. Lunch, Et’s preparing noodle soup with vegetables and a loaf of bread is tiding us over.
Our group: too large for my taste, and the inevitable factionalization. The Americans can’t seem to leave business, stocks and talk of computers behind, and are sometimes unbelievably inept at dealing with the “primitive”. They even brought walkie-talkies, one for Sawat, the other for the guys, so occasionally your hear the click-click-static, followed by feigned seriousness: “We’ve lost four people, over…”, and at night, lying awake in our village shelters, they pass around sleeping pills. At the same time though, they’re really funny guys and have a great sense of humour, and everybody’s getting along alright. In many ways, it just wouldn’t have been the same without them.
After lunch, we climbed aboard, 3 to 4 to each bamboo raft (long bamboo poles strung together), all of us taking turns with the long poles to push ourselves off opposite banks of the river to steer. A good day for everyone to bod a little bit, rather than just huffing and puffing on the trail.
Our second night we stayed in a Lisu village, another hilltribe which came from China originally. The girls dressed in beautiful colored tunics and the older women of the tribe smiling at us, their teeth blackened with betelnut juice.
Some of the girls spoke English and we learned they actually went to school about a 30 min. walk away, studying Thai, as well as English. In general, a more sophisticated tribe, and the kids were a lot more loving and less aggressive (except for this one little evil boy who was attacking dogs and other children with a stick). Befriended Nu and Aloma, two sisters, as well as Aumat, a feisty 12 year-old who kept pointing out all the boys in our group Jessie and I should marry; she cracked herself up constantly.
The girls sang and danced after dinner and then got us up to perform goofy English songs for them. At bedtime we all laid awake on our hard wooden slat beds and giggled and joked like we were in summer camp. “Camping,” someone explained to Lee, an LA guy, “is when you’re in a tent that’s about to blow over from the rain. This is NOT camping!” The LA guys are really funny, non-stop entertainment, really good fun. The New Yorker is uptight, but deadpan, so often we have to laugh at him, too. The Aussies, best sense of humour in the world, as usual, and the Danes, keep to themselves somewhat, but good to talk to, and the Kiwi, a kooky guy, twisted, funny.
Middle of the night, every dog in the village, howling and barking. Didn’t let up for at least an hour, brought people one-by-one stumbling out to the outhouse, coughing, bumping, more giggling. After the dogs died down, the rooster started, non-stop crowing on-and-off till daybreak, more fits of laughter throughout the night, our situation being totally ludicrous at that point.
It was a long night but the next morning the elephants were led in to pick us up and we rode three to each one. Jessie and I shared the seat, a small wooden bench with arms strapped around the elephant’s belly; Andrew, the Kiwi, rode on the head with Hong Di’s big flapping ears back, wrapped loosely around his calves. Trekked with the elephants for about an hour, weird sensation as they lumbered along, slow and gentle, but massive beasts…coarse, dry skin like unfinished leather, bristly hair, and very large elephant turds plopping along the way. One seemed to be getting fresh with Paul (one of the LA guys) as she was constantly wrapping her trunk around his leg and tugging on it. He later complained of “elephant rash”.
Of course we were cracking up the whole time, really good fun. We reached a dirt road and found ourselves close to a town, waiting for us was a small pickup truck—no benches in the back—just our gear and the same 12 large bodies to squeeze in. “You’re joking!” We really thought Sawat was joking. “Not joking,” with his face totally straight. So we all piled in, three guys standing behind the truck’s rear window, three and four people lining each side, two in the rear, and me crouched on the bed of the truck with one leg stuck up on the tailgate. Lee, with his knee injury, was sprawled in front of me across the spare tire. Twenty minutes later we stopped to visit a cave, an hour of climbing rocks and creeping through a pitch dark cavern with flashlights. Our guide, “the mute elf-boy”, stopped at the occasional squeals of bat sightings and monster spiders on the cave walls. It was a classic adventure, let me tell you. Lee had to be carried out and down by three people.
Cruising over dusty dirt roads, bumping and bouncing for two more hours, the guys in the front facing ahead like something out of “Road Warrior”, yelling “Clear!” whenever low-hanging branches were coming, everyone scrambling and lurching to duck their heads as we down below got jostled and thrown around. By the end of the ride and much hilarity, we were a mass of crumpled bodies, melded into one on the bed of the truck with a few stalwarts still clinging to the rails. We switched trucks at Ching Dao and simmered down for the last 1-1/2 hour ride to Chiang Mai.
Even a cold shower felt good, and later a bunch of us met up for dinner, almost all heading for Koh Samui the next day, and we, taking an overnight bus to Bangkok, and another down to Samui the day following that—hoping to run into our fellow hilltribe trekkers down there.