A House In The Tiny Village Of Lahu
One of the main attractions and reasons most people visit Northern Thailand is for the trekking. So, while in Pai, I decided that it would make a good two day outing before I had to start putting some miles behind me and leave to Laos.
The Trek started off riding a song thew from Pai and up into the mountains for an hour and a half before getting off in the middle of nowhere where a math path weaved its way up the mountains, through the jungle and into mountain tribe villages.
Our first day was the more physical and difficult of the two days with roughly four hours of a steady climb passing through creeks and rivers. When it came time for lunch our guide cut down some bamboo and used it to make us chopsticks and cups and even made a pot, or sorts, which he used to boil water on the fire and make us some good ol' fashioned jungle tea.
From being in South East Asia I have now decided Bamboo is pretty much the most versatile plants in the world and I think somebody should figure out a way to make it be able to stand up to the cold of winter so I can plant a bamboo forest in my backyard. It amazing!! People use it for absolutely everything. Need a house? Bamboo. Need cups, bowls, chopsticks? Bamboo. Need to make a trap to catch animals and make a rack to smoke and cook your newly acquired feast?Bamboo. Or maybe you just want to sit around, visit with friends and have a nice cup of tea before turning in for night. Bamboo. Well now that I am pretty sure that everyone catches
my drift I will carry on with my story.
The first, and only, night we spent in a tiny village called Lahu. I couldn't exactly give you number for the population but when I asked the guide he told me that these villages are measured in families, not people, and the Lahu village consisted of roughly 45 families. I am so glad I decided to do the trek because this is one of the first times in Thailand that I was able to understand, and see, how poor it is and how hard these people work when you get outside of the tourist area which now consumes the majority of the country.
The village is basically bamboo huts on stilts, so there animals can live under them, with one place where a pipe came from the side of a hill that had a steady flow of fresh water. So as you can imagine this area has 45 families showering, doing there laundry, and also keeping a steady supply for carrying back to your house for daily use.
In the evening we sat with the "locals", stuffed ourselves with a gourmet spread of food from the land, and even got to dabble in the sticky rice moonshine.(Its about as good as it sounds)
The Trek started off riding a song thew from Pai and up into the mountains for an hour and a half before getting off in the middle of nowhere where a math path weaved its way up the mountains, through the jungle and into mountain tribe villages.
Our first day was the more physical and difficult of the two days with roughly four hours of a steady climb passing through creeks and rivers. When it came time for lunch our guide cut down some bamboo and used it to make us chopsticks and cups and even made a pot, or sorts, which he used to boil water on the fire and make us some good ol' fashioned jungle tea.
From being in South East Asia I have now decided Bamboo is pretty much the most versatile plants in the world and I think somebody should figure out a way to make it be able to stand up to the cold of winter so I can plant a bamboo forest in my backyard. It amazing!! People use it for absolutely everything. Need a house? Bamboo. Need cups, bowls, chopsticks? Bamboo. Need to make a trap to catch animals and make a rack to smoke and cook your newly acquired feast?Bamboo. Or maybe you just want to sit around, visit with friends and have a nice cup of tea before turning in for night. Bamboo. Well now that I am pretty sure that everyone catches
my drift I will carry on with my story.
The first, and only, night we spent in a tiny village called Lahu. I couldn't exactly give you number for the population but when I asked the guide he told me that these villages are measured in families, not people, and the Lahu village consisted of roughly 45 families. I am so glad I decided to do the trek because this is one of the first times in Thailand that I was able to understand, and see, how poor it is and how hard these people work when you get outside of the tourist area which now consumes the majority of the country.
The village is basically bamboo huts on stilts, so there animals can live under them, with one place where a pipe came from the side of a hill that had a steady flow of fresh water. So as you can imagine this area has 45 families showering, doing there laundry, and also keeping a steady supply for carrying back to your house for daily use.
In the evening we sat with the "locals", stuffed ourselves with a gourmet spread of food from the land, and even got to dabble in the sticky rice moonshine.(Its about as good as it sounds)
The next day we had a fairly short descent through rice fields, some jungle, and down to a river, which is where our walked ended for the day and the real fun started. Once at the river we found a bamboo raft that was going to be our source of transportation back to the highway and our lift back to Pai.
Under normal circumstances, once you get to the last little village in your journey the guide picks up a couple of the locals to steer there bamboo raft full of people and bags down the river. The difference between normal and how it seems to happen with me we all know is quite far from each other. Instead of that happening, when we got to the town it was completely empty because everyone was out working in the rice fields. Our guide felt quite bad, cause that's all we were talking about for most of the start of the day, so he managed to find one of his uncles that had a bamboo raft and volunteered to be our captain for the afternoon.
After first seeing the raft it became clear why it was not part of the tourist fleet. It was completely falling apart but after about an hour of maintenance our ship was ready to set sail.
Once we managed to get the raft from the shore to the river, we loaded our luggage, all crawled on, and with the uncle and guide steering we were starting our rafting adventure.
The raft that we were using I have no doubt worked perfectly well with a couple adults and maybe some rice or something but when we piled seven adults and seven big backpacks it was a little different story......actually it was much more of a bamboo submarine than a raft!
The river was quite low at this time of the year so, in spots, with the buoyancy of our raft the way it was and the rocks sticking up, hitting them was inevitable. After the first few crashes we soon learned that this voyage was not only going to be a little rough but it just so happens that this was our guides first time as "captain".
Even for it being his first time he really did do good and there hasn't been very many times on the trip where I have laughed as hard at someone as I did with him. He was placed at the front of the raft standing so every time we hit a rock he would keep going and land in the river in front of us. He would then scramble back to the boat yelling in Thai, which we learned later was because he couldn't swim, good combination! But he truly was hilarious and after the first few "man over boards" he learned his lesson and went for the approach of yelling "KABOOM" and would lay on the front of the raft and hold himself on.
The rafting lasted a about an hour or so. Then, after a quick stop at the biggest cave in the world (its funny how hard to impress people are when there exhausted) we were on the highway headed back to Pai with memories which will not easily be forgotten.
Our Bamboo Tea Pot
Another Homestead In Lahu
The Local Water Supply
A Rest In The Rice Fields
Our Ship The Bamboo Explorer
Had To Finish Off With Another Sunset
2 comments:
Sounds great! miss ya, enjoy the rest of your trip- there will be more adventures to come your way.
hey buddy...sorry i couldn't chat the other day, work was a calling....can't wait to see you...
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