It’s a rare opportunity when the passing backpacker catches a glimpse of the daily life of the native peoples through whose towns he passes. Just such an opportunity was awarded to Genny and me recently when, along with our two traveling companions, Blake and Becky, we booked a trek for 3 days and 2 nights into the hills of northern Thailand.
These treks typically consist of up to twelve trekkers and two guides, but, as you’ll see, this was no normal trek.
The first hour of the trek is a tuk-tuk ride to the hills from Chiang Mai, including a stop over to buy water and supplies for dinner that night. We were pleasantly surprised when our lone guide told us that there would be no other trekkers on our trip, and that for the first day and night it would be only the five of us. What a treat to have the hill tribes of Thailand all to ourselves!
So into the hills we went, our first stop elephant rides into the jungle, followed by a three hour trek through the hills to the first tribe where we would spend the first night. It was an easy hike to the camp where we met our elephants, though when we arrived there was only one elephant available as the rest were out feeding. To kill some time, the elephant handlers gave us some bananas and allowed us to feed and take pictures of the elephant. Once the other elephants arrived, we were off.
On the backs of elephants we rode, through the jungle we trekked. After an hour of riding and a few free baths provided by our elephant, we parted from our pachyderm and set out for the tribes. After crossing the river via the zip line cage, we hiked the steep trail in temperatures no less than 105 degrees Fahrenheit, with humidity at no less than 90 %, and with no less than three of us suffering from cases of the S.E.A.S. (South East Asian Squirts) brought on by uncustomary food in unaccustomed stomachs. You try holding it for three hours in the scorching heat with nothing but the prospect of a drop hole to look forward to.
From a distance we approached the hill tribes, and it was everything we’d imagined it to be. Many years eating in Chinese, Japanese, and Thai restaurants had prepared us for these sights; the pictures hanging on the walls in any of these establishments paint a fair and accurate picture of the scenery that lay before us.
But the novelty bush life is soon extinguished once we realize that there is no Disney in this landscape. The villages we find are not tourist traps set up to draw income, nor are they life size dioramas for our viewing pleasure. These are people’s homes; the outlying farms their lively hood. For us, we’ve just entered a human zoo. These native people have allowed us to enter their homes for a few day hours, dinner, and a night’s sleep in exchange for no more than ten or fifteen American dollars.
You enter the town of no more than 100 citizens on foot and immediately the differences strike you. These houses are constructed of bamboo and palm fronds, their floors are wood planks are dirt. The stray pigs, chickens, dogs, and cats roaming the village are no one’s and everyone’s, meandering in and our of any house with an open door, which is all of them. Intermingled within the roaming livestock are the children of the villagers. Some of these kids are fully clothed, some are not. Many are filthy, wearing clothes stained brown from lack of washing. While watching the kids play a versioned game of tag, Gen and I were shocked as one departed the game, walked to perimeter of the playing field (which was also someone’s front stoop), dropped her pants and peed, then re-entered the game. Because travelers don’t come through too often, they kids are taken by many of our parlor tricks and even amazed at Gen’s curly hair. But it wasn’t until a tap on the shoulder that our whole world was turned over.
When I turned to see who was calling my attention, I was greeted by an elderly woman whose teeth had long ago fallen out, and the few that remained had gone black from poor oral hygiene. She was selling some hand made trinkets, and sight that would become commonplace before the end of this trek and smoking some home-grown tobacco. But what she was calling my attention to was neither her product nor her smoke, but the goings-on behind her. When we looked, we saw something that will remain with me forever. A man was preparing an animal for slaughter for eating. But, with no regulations or proper means, preparing for slaughter involves beating the animal until it is stunned and twitching, and then tossing like a sack of potatoes over a fence and into a pen where it will be slaughtered. We witnessed the beatings and the tossing by the neck, though we turned away before seeing the slaughter. Where this any normal sort of livestock, it would have been shocking, but not horrifying as it was. The reason for our appall, though, was that they were doing this, out in the open in front of the children, to a dog. To many, a dog is another member of the family. To these tribes-people, the dogs in town are another form of livestock. All we could do was avert our eyes, cringe, and think of Grizzly cuddling somewhere warm.
After this shocking experience, nothing could faze us from here on out. That night we enjoyed dinner and games with the village children, who, by the way, are desperate for attention, and got plenty of it from Gen. The next day we set out with an additional guide to help us with this leg of our trek. He had no name, so our guide, who we’d fondly named Marky Mark, told us to refer to him as Jackie Chan. He had no name because he was deaf and dumb. And so, with our deaf, dumb guide, trekking day two started with a short hike to waterfalls, and then on to our next village from there. Tonight we stayed at a campsite occupied by only two people year round, so for dinner that night it was just the seven of us. Afterwards, the proprietors were kind enough to share some of their home brewed Thai whiskey moonshine. The rest is a bit hazy from there…
A late start thanks to the kindness of Marky Mark and we made our way to the river for some whitewater rafting. What an exciting adventure it was with only one frightening moment when Gen went overboard into some rapids, but of course I jumped in to her rescue. A little humor heals the wounds of fear from this, but it was quite scary; Gen and I were both frightened for her.
After the whitewater rafting, our trip comes to an end with a leisurely cruise down the river on some handmade bamboo rafts into a village where our tuk-tuk was waiting to take us home.
What an amazing adventure through the native lands of Thailand. We started this trek a bit naïve, but learned so much about ourselves and about the lives of others that by the end our naiveté had been sloughed away. Though there were times when I though we were trekking through a UNICEF commercial, overall this was an eye-opening experience that taught me to really appreciate what I have. But don’t get me wrong. These people are neither miserable nor unhappy; they merely lead different lives than we.
