Breakfast in the Hilltribe Village

The sunlight streaming through the floorboards is our first hint it is time to wake up. We spent the night in a bamboo hut, sleeping mats and blankets lining the far wall, and smoke billowing in the corner from a small fire. Our guides already sit beside it cooking our breakfast - a standard tourist fare of eggs and toast alongside fresh pineapple and coffee. Our stomachs can handle it better than the spices, they tell us. Damp clothes hang from every rafter. The rain had surprised us mid-hike, and with the humidity and no electricity, they stayed wet. Our attempts to use the bonfire to dry them were in vain; the bonfire smoking the clothes much more than it dried them.

Stepping out into the crisp morning air, I see the fire has been re-lit, and seven of the village children have gathered around it, perching on logs and a metal shoe rack overturned near the fire. A few feet away, between the bamboo hut and the fire, there is a wide pit that drops twenty meters to the grass and dirt below. The fire itself is contained within a smattering of logs. My eyes linger on one child who wears a winter parka over his shorts and flip-flops, the fur-lined hood pulled up around his face. He feeds part of the chocolate treat he has been eating to a local pet, a tan-coloured dog who scratches his fur constantly. The child tells a joke, and the group laughs. I am aware of my culture as I count the safety hazards surrounding them: the open fire, the sharp metal rack, falling. Meanwhile, I watch how easily they navigate their environment.

We eat our breakfast as they cast us curious glances, watching us eat our eggs and prepare our coffee. When it comes time to fill our water, they gather around, looking at the camelbacks, intrigued as we pour fresh water inside. As we stand there, it strikes me that the chaos of their world is just as foreign as the order in ours: a group of hikers and village children, each trying to understand the structures within which the other half live.