For Ja, Lek, and Mr. Ton

Chiang Mai, Thailand
My thighs ached from the strain.

Maybe partially due to the three hours of uphill hiking, but most likely from the unusual position I found myself in. I was in northern Thailand in the hills just south of the city Chiang Mai at a village squatting above a hole in the ground on a small slab of concrete surrounded by thin, short tin walls. My thighs burned. But let me back up a few hours and tell you how I came to be in that position.

Along with Brad and I, the Suzuki Samurai was filled with an Englishman, his Spanish girlfriend, and two Thai tour guides: Ja driving and Lek cramped amongst the baggage in the back of the vehicle.

It was another intimate tour group. Our luck for meeting people hasn’t been that good thus far. Coupled with the experience of a tour, we’d also like to meet some nice people to hang out and keep in touch with. Maybe it’s being in the wrong places at the wrong times, maybe we’re not traveling in peak season, or maybe our luck for meeting people is beginning to run out. Anyhow…

They are called Jungle Treks. Every travel agency and guesthouse in Chiang Mai books them. There are several to choose from. We opted for the medium two-day, one-night excursion.

Our first stop was a market. There were booths selling fried chicken (including the feet), live fish, vegetables, and fruit. Ja and Lek bought some provisions for dinner later on that night. Also milling around were several other tour groups and their guides. Ja asked us later on if we would like to join another group. Wanting the opportunity to meet more people, we said, ‘sure.’ Later we would join them at the waterfall, but first we would ride the elephants.

I imagine this would be the closest thing to feeling like I was riding a dinosaur. A metal seat sat on the back of the pachyderm on top of several folded blankets for its comfort. The seat was secured by ropes that looped under the tail and around the neck. Without a chair, the trainer sat directly on the elephant’s head in perfect balance. Awkwardly, we ambled down the path. It was a precarious trail, quite thin with steep parts. The elephant’s agility (or maybe just its balance) surprised me. Several times I thought we were going to be thrown overboard, but weren’t. Now and again it would swing its trunk in our direction and spray snot on our legs as a bonus. At the conclusion of the ride, it was rewarded with bananas and sugarcane which it took with its trunk from our hands.

Back in the cozy jeep, we headed up the road toward the waterfall. (Just as a side note, the roads were terrific. No potholes making it oh so smooth in contrast to the roads of Cambodia and Vietnam.) We congregated around the rocks in front of the waterfall for a lunch of pork fried rice with several other trekking groups. I climbed on the rocks and gazed at the water gushing over the cliff. It was a pleasant break before our three hour hike.

The new group, led by Mr. Ton, was subdivided into two factions: The Proper British Crew (a guy, his sister, and her friend) and the South Korean Flip Flop Squad (four well-dressed girls carrying their supplies in plastic bags, cameras slung over their shoulders, and flip flops for hiking boots). I think the words “trek” and “hike” were somehow lost in translation.

As the hike began, it was quickly clear that there would be two further groups: the fast and the slow. Mr. Ton held back with two Koreans and a Brit, while Ja took the point and Lek brought up the rear of the fast group. We hiked through streams, rice paddies, and rocks, always in the forresty jungle and always (well, for the most part) straight up, sweating profusely all the way.

Living high up in the hills, these tribes exist unto themselves. There are many of them. The one we visited was the Karen tribe, which had its own language of the same name. We arrived around 6:00 in the evening and before it got dark I wanted to explore the terrain. That is when I first saw it—the facilities. The majority of the buildings were longhouses that were comprised of a sleeping, dining, and a kitchen room that were all slightly partitioned off. The kitchen was on one end of the house and was basically an elevated floor made of bamboo. Then the opened walled dining room with one table and dirt floor. Finally the sleeping room which was similar to the kitchen with its elevated, bamboo floor, but it was three times the size and had a walkway in the middle. Everyone sleeps in the same “bed,” which was really like sleeping on a hard floor. We were given sleeping bags and a blanket for covers or a pillow. The two buildings that weren’t for sleeping, eating, or preparing food were the toilets. I partially described them early.

Ja, Lek, and Mr. Ton began preparing the meal along with the Karen tribes people. Some took showers (I think all the Koreans did), but I was not one of them. I figured I wouldn’t be fully able to rid my body of the smells of a day of hiking and, besides, I was going to be doing it all over again the next day. Also, the water was cold and I’m a bit of a pansy when it comes to cold showers.

The meal was presented to us on an outdoor table. All 11 trekkers and three guides sat around and took part in the delicious meal of green curry with eggplant, rice, and chicken. We ate and talked till well after the sun had set. Around the table we went introducing ourselves by telling where we were from, what we do back home, and where we’re off to next. Some had been living in Australia and were now on their way back home, some were just here on a short holiday, and some had quit their jobs and were traveling for nearly a year. The guides had all been novices, young monks, when they were younger and told us how it was.

Later that evening we were serenaded by the children of the village around a bonfire. They sang us several songs, then passed a tip bucket around so that we could donate to their school. In return, we sang to them. The English speakers sang “Old McDonald had a Farm” and “The Hokey Pokey” thinking that the children might enjoy the clapping and gestures. They were really indifferent. The Koreans sang a pretty song in their language. After the children and most of the trekkers had gone to bed, Mr. Ton busted out a guitar and sang and played for us. His witty renditions of songs from Bob Marley, Simon and Garfunkel, and others were truly entertaining. I sat next to Lek and we spoke about the Karen tribe of which he knew a great deal. They marry around 16 years old and until then the virgin girls wear white. Only after marriage are they allowed to wear the traditional colors of blue and red. They live with the parents of the girl for a long time before they get their own place.

The smoke from the fire was burning my eyes, so I decided to call it a night. I settled onto the floor and envisioned slumber. The sleep was not too bad. I slept on one side and when it went numb I would just turn over and sleep on the other side. Morning came early and we woke not long after the sun. Toast and pineapple were prepared for our breakfast. Then there was a little rumble in my tummy. I knew that it wouldn’t be pacified for three more hours of hiking and several more hours of travel until I got back to Chiang Mai. The only solution was to use the tin shanty squat toilet. The only detail that I will offer, as this is not pleasant topic, is that my thighs burned. But I think I already mentioned that.

With that behind me, the groups split again. The British Proper Crew were on a three-day, two-night trek, so we said goodbye to them and Mr. Ton. We continued on with the South Korean Flip Flop Squad. Three hours of mostly downhill hiking led us to a truck that took us to a small town that was filled with restaurants and trekkers eating. Our meal was ready for us when we got there: Pad Thai. From there we took on the rapids of the Wang River. With four, plus a guide, to a raft made of 10, 15-foot long bamboo branches held together by rubber straps, we braved the river. The rapids were hardly rapids, but in a raft where the hull was made of just branches that let water through, it was quite exciting and damp. We floated down for less than an hour and were enlightened to how they got the rafts back upstream. They disassembled them at the landing point and hauled them by truck back to the launching dock.

This was the end of the trek and we said goodbye to the Koreans and boarded the Suzuki. An hour later we arrived back in Chiang Mai and said goodbye again to the Englishman, his Spanish girlfriend, Ja, and Lek.

The next day my legs still burned!