Hi guys!
More new joiners.....Ant GER!!! And of course Andre...without you, no'one would be seeing any pix...thank you!!! (xo)
So, the trek is finished, and I'm still alive. It was ridiculously hard; my muscles are still sore. We walked about 7 hours a day, 3 days running....up and down STEEP mountains, through rivers and streams up to my waist ~ and once to just below my armpits....! ~ and through underbrush ( i guess thats what you would call it) so thick that our porter had to lead the way and chop a pathway through. For a lot of the time, I found I had to really concentrate on where my next step should fall ~ to the point where, an hour would go by and I'd have thought of nothing else. An all-consuming consideration, when the wrong choice means falling...well, I don't know how far. But as the guide said, 'you die'. So...I guess it was a LONG way down!~!! BUT.....we hiked so far up that we were walking right through the mountain mist, and listening to cicadas, birds, and gibbons...amazing. Gibbons....sounded like slide whistles to me. Very haunting and almost impossible to link in my mind that monkeys were making that noise. But very definately one of my favourite moments of the trek.
Not so fun was the part when I had to have leeches pulled off my ankles. I can't believe how tenacious and STRONG they are, it really hurt when it was pulled off.....and its left a massive wound. Have had to clean it daily for fear of infection. They move kinda like inchworms, which surprised me...and climb right up your shoes and sox etc to get to skin. Great shoes we bought for water drainage Mom, but not so good for leech repelling...they can go in right through that drainage mesh!!! Our guide soaked our shoes and socks with tobacco juice after that, which kills them...so even if they make it onto your shoes, they die almost immediately. Good tip!
Our guide was pretty amazing and really interesting....he worked for the American embassy in Laos during the Vietnam war, packing food and supplies for US troops. He learned English there, from the American GI's, and I think he said he was 16 or 17 at that time. After the war, he said he became a monk to 'make rest'. Well, it must have been restful...he was a monk for 28 years, and only a couple years have passed since he left that behind. He was full of stories about killing snakes, making 'human being' traps, and all the hallucinogenic plants in the jungle. He was also keen on making us aware of how DANGEROUS it was. Which is good I guess...but did make for a sleepless night!!!
Both nights, we stayed in remote Karen villages, right in the huts with the family who has chosen to host us. They cook dinner over open fires in the main room, with cats sleeping near the fire, and dogs hovering outside the door, and pigs and chickens underneath. The houses are up on stilts so the animals are penned beneath, and kitchen scraps etc can be swept down to them. I never realized pigs were so LOUD and their squeals so piercing. Made it hard to sleep, thats for sure.
The villages usually have between 15-20 families, fairly close together, for safety and community reasons. One family, who had chosen to live a fair ways out and were relatively on their own, had a surprise visit in the middle of the night from a tiger, after their livestock (or them!) The farmer shot it, and sold all its parts on the black market in Chiang Mai for about 18,000 baht. (huge market in China for tiger bits I guess!!!)
Other dangers...pythons and king cobras. Rice harvesting is dangerous every year because of snakes. So...this is whats going through my mind as we walk through the jungle...not to mention the part where we're scaling sheer rock face, along rivers, in wet shoes...because we just CROSSSED the river. Now that its done, I dont' mind admitting it was terrifying. One of the rivers was higher than usual from the heavy rain, and our guide and porter cut down a huge length of bamboo to make a railing, which they held either end of. Then we could use that to guide us across. My feet kept coming out from under me..the current was so strong. No way could I have made it across without that. (thats the river that was up to my armpits...)
In other scary death-defying news.....we hiked up to a waterfall, and I mean we walked UP the river towards it.....got to what WE thought was the foot of the waterfall..and then he leads us to a ladder. No more walking sticks....we need both hands to make it up this ladder. Its made of bamboo, theres moss all over it, and its slanted to one side...so your feet, on every rung, are all mushed over to the left. (which, as you can imagine, doesn't ease the mind in an already precarious situation.). Slippery...and there are 2 rungs missing on the way up. That felt like a HUGE gap to close with one step! At the top, our guide was waiting to grab our hands and pull us out of the rushing current to dry land...and then....you could see the REAL waterfall. I couldn't take pix because it was too misty....but it was amazing. I don't think I really appreciated it though ~ all I could think of was how on earth I was going to go back down. I came very close to panicking....but really whats the use of that. I though of you Michelle....you would have lost it (and i really came close..)....I think you'd still be up there now!
So, obviously, all went well. But I felt like crying ( i guess relief??) when I got to the bottom. I would NEVER do that again. I think Matthieu took pictures of me coming down, so if he emails them...I'll send 'em along.
Also, they have Ovaltine here! They mix it with coffee, and its SO good. For breakfast they made us scrambled eggs, with tomato and cucumber on the side, with toast and coffee/ovaltine. They were very proud of the 'american breakfast' they made us!
Ooo...I also have cinnamon from the bark of the tree, that we dried over the fire at night. So cool...he just starts hacking at the bark of some seemingly random tree...hands us the bark and tells us to taste it....and its cinnamon!! Pretty cool. We also saw orchids everywhere....parasitic plant, and so pretty. I think he said its Thailands natl. flower. I don't even know what Canadas is...I only know Ontario is the Trilllium. Anyone care to educate me???
Anyways, a shower was great after that ordeal. I had to keep reminding myself that i'd paid to do it!!!! Gross feeling having your clothes dry on your body, especially when you know they were wet from sweating and/or grimy river water. At least it was relatively cool under the protection of the jungle canopy....when we were out in the open....we roasted.
So, I spent the day today being lazy. (i finished the trek yesterday). I leave tomorrow morning back to Pai, to relax a little more, finish my book, and do some elephant riding!!!! Then the plan is....back to Chiang Mai, and on to Laos. I have to be out of Thailand before nov 16th....so I've still got lots of time.
Can't remember if I already told you....I rented a motorbike here in Mae Hong Son the day before the trek, and took a drive out toward the Burmese border to see the Padeung hill tribe (aka Long Neck karen tribe). They charged 250baht to get in, as they are Burmese refugees,,,,,and use tourist $ to supplement other meagre income and help them exist; I thought pretty long and hard about going to see them. Seems really exploitative...but then, I remember seeing pix in Dad's books when I was little, and it seemed dumb to come all they way out here and not go. Very touristy...but at least I was the only foreigner in the village at the time. And the drive out was cool...you had to drive through like 9 streams, through winding roads, and the only other 'traffic' I passed was an elephant and rider.. So it was worth it for that alone....! I took some pictures, and I bought something for Marky there....! Its already on its way home, but you have to wait for me...its somewhere in the depths of a big box of stuff...!!!!
Ok, thats it. I need to go get a massage, so I'm off. Miss you guys, I look forward to emails and I really appreciate when any of you take the time to write!!!!
Lots of love,
xoxoxo Laura
ps. theres a couple new pix up!
