New Year's Day. Ruth and I woke up really early to prepare for our hike. It was a two day, one night adventure. It was a small group, the two of us, our tour guide whom never once introduced himself to us and a French man that was rather interesting. The first half of the morning, we were given the typical run-around of a tour in Thailand. Finally, after lunch we embarked on our hike. The jungle that we hiked in was fantastic. I showered myself in the cancer causing chemical of deet to keep the mosquitoes off me. We had only been in the "high-concentration of mosquitoes" part for about 2 minutes when our tour guide killed one that was a malaria-mosquito. Thank goodness for the pills I was taking.
The jungle wasn't one that is tromped through a lot. Our guide, along with a knife sharp enough to behead someone cut his way through the overgrown bush. He even cut down an entire banana tree with this knife. He taught us survival techniques in the jungle - such as if you ever come become prey of snakes. His knowledge extended to the types of jungle food one can eat. He always gave it to us to try, but it was never anything I'd want to try again. The view was fantastic. It wasn't a terribly difficult hike but nice to be out nonetheless.
Our resting place for the night was in an Akha hill tribe village. We got there just around dinner time and turned the bamboo hut into home. The hut which was typical of what the hills tribe people sleep in was built up on stilts with hard futons, a few blankets and a mosquito net to sleep under. The porch had a gorgeous overlook of the hills in the distance. We all changed into fresher clothes and relaxed. The actual hill tribes people live about a 5 minute walk away from where we were staying. We were staying in their village technically but not imposing on them at all. Unless, they came to our part of the hill, they'd never know we were there. I preferred it that way.
There was one man that was in charge of assisting us. His hut was across the threshold from our hut. He served us tea, brought us snacks and ended up helping our guide by making us dinner and breakfast. The helper man was sweet, no words ever exchanged between us but his smile always so friendly. Later on, while the French man was in the hut talking on his cell phone (yes, his cell phone worked here!) - Ruth and I had a visitor. His name was Chang. Chang was this vibrant 11year old boy.
Our guide while walking had made this pop gun out of a bamboo twig. It soon becomes a spitball gun with the help of some paper. Luckily for me, I had brought a small notepad of paper to keep notes that was soon used for ammunition. Chang taught us. First, rip off a piece of paper and put it in your mouth. While inside your mouth, soak it with your spit and make it into a ball. Put the spit covered ball of paper in one side of the gun. In the other side, put in more bamboo and put it in and out quickly to get some energy going. Last - push the bamboo in and watch the spit ball go POP and fly.
We must have done this for a good 45 minutes. The spit balls getting increasingly larger and us starting to aim for targets such as the local pig or what not. Chang was great - always laughing and never getting tired of the spit ball gun. He was good company. Soon, night fell and we were served dinner. With the setting of the sun and the increase in altitude by being in the hills, it was incredibly cold. I had brought layers and layers but nothing could prepare me for the coldness of the night. Ruth, the tour guide and I played several rounds of rummy by candlelight before calling it a night at 9:30pm. There's not much to do at night in a bamboo hut without electricity.
I must have slept nearly 11 hours when the tour guide forced me awake to have breakfast with the others. We hiked back down that day with even more wild plants to eat, coming across a beautiful waterfall and him showing us more and more tricks
As we made our descent, I couldn't help but to be impressed with the agility the guide had in the jungle. He was always 5 steps ahead of us chopping stuff down, moving rocks in the stream for us to walk over, making sure the trail was clear. What took him a split second would take me a minute to even figure out what to do next. He knew this jungle like the back of his hand. It was at this point that I realized it's no wonder we couldn't win the Vietnam war. This man has been raised in the jungles, hunts in the jungles, he is practically one with the jungle. There's no way we could compete with this type of knowledge, no matter how much training our soldiers may have had. This guy was good. He's been doing it for 35 years, easily. He doesn't need to think twice, he sees, he reacts, he's ahead. Thanks to our skillful guide, we made our way back into Chiang Rai with enough time to shower and catch our scheduled afternoon bus back to Chiang Mai.
Click HERE for all the photos.
