We are picked up at about 9.15am by a covered pick-up truck for the start of our two-day trek into the hills north-west of Chiang Mai. There are seven of us on the trip – three young Americans from Kentucky and two Flemish-speaking Belgian women, one of whom, it turns out, has a very bad cold. The pick-up truck is fitted out with facing bench seats which are not as uncomfortable as they look and we settle down for a 45-minute drive to a village market north of Chiang Mai. It is here that our Thai guide, Boom, stocks up on provisions for the trip whilst we wander round for 20 minutes or so.
Next stop is at an elephant camp. Already the itinerary has been altered and the activities planned for tomorrow are on today’s agenda. We clamber from a wooden mounting pier onto a rather uncomfortable howdah whilst our mahout sits astride the elephant’s neck. For 20 Baht we’ve bought a bag of elephant ‘feed’ consisting of bananas and sugar cane. As our elephant lumbers off towards the jungle we discover that it is more concerned with what’s in the bag than taking us for a ride; every few steps it’s trunk rises over it’s head in search of a banana or three. Occasionally, great gusts of exhaled air hit our faces or snot is flung on our clothes. If food isn’t forthcoming our elephant stops a while to gather some jungle foliage instead. Our ride lasts for about an hour mostly through the jungle and then down a riverbank and into a small river before returning to the elephant camp. Along the route there are several huts raised to elephant height, selling bags of bananas and sugar cane giving us several opportunity to replenish our supplies.
After a short drive in the pick-up truck we reach the start of the trek which leads us to a secluded waterfall where we stop for a lunch of fried rice out of a plastic bag. Take-away food is quite commonly sold in plastic bags by street vendors and our guide has most likely purchased our lunch during the market stop. The water is quite cold but this doesn’t stop the men, and one of the Belgian women, from taking a dip by the cascading water. From this point the trek is a steep uphill climb for about an hour-and-an-half, which starts to sort out the men from the boys. The Americans are streaking ahead whilst the rest of us are taking things at a more measured pace with the Belgians starting to lag some way behind. Around 4pm we reach the Karen Hill tribe village where we are staying the night.
The village is a loose grouping of wooden and bamboo one-room houses on stilts with corrugated or thatched roofs. There are no surfaced roads and one gets the impression that in the rainy season they turn into rushing torrents. Black pigs, hens, chicks, dogs and a few cows are wander untethered every where. In this society the women seem to call the shots, certainly as far as marriage is concerned – it is the women who asks for the man’s hand in marriage and the newly-weds live with the bride’s parents until they can afford to build their own house. All, that is, apart from the youngest child in the family who must live with their parents even after marriage in order to care for them in their old age. In return they inherit their parents’ house. A woman’s marital status is denoted by what she wears; unmarried women wear a white dress usually over their normal clothes, whilst married women can wear colourful clothes. There appears to be no mechanisation in the village although there are solar panels and TV aerials. Rice is still split from the husk manually using a very primitive and laborious contraption that pounds the grains prior to winnowing.
Our accommodation is a roughly constructed, single-room bamboo hut on stilts with a corrugated roof and outside toilet. We are sleeping side-by-side under mosquito nets on mats and thin bed pads. After a simple dinner of curry, vegetables and rice followed by fruit we are entertained to some enthusiastic if rather ragged singing by the village children around the camp fire.
We are in bed by 9.30am which is just as well as it is a fitful night’s sleep interrupted by the American’s snoring, cockerel’s crowing, cows moo-ing and the general awakening of the village as the sun rises.