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The time had come for us to go on another adventure and this time I wanted to go trekking deep into the heart of the Thai Jungle. It's almost a rite of passage for the SE Asia backpacker. The problem was when I started to look into booking a trek I became really disheartened at what I read.
Most treks that were offered were for tourists who purely wanted to say they had done it and clearly had no concern for moral ethics! The treks all involved light trekking (obviously) elephant riding, white water rafting and a visit to a Karen tribe. The pictures of the elephants made me sad, miserable and chained at the ankles whilst fat, white people rode them through the river. I read stories of Karen tribes wanting nothing to do with the tour groups on arrival purely because they were being extorted for financial gain by the tour company. I didn't want to be a part of that. I am against everything it stood for. So I researched further and I found a place called Pooh's Eco Trekking whose motto was 'Leave nothing but footprints. Take nothing but pictures. Kill nothing but time'. There was no elephant riding, no easy treks and no extortion. It was going to be serious work and that's what made we want to do it even more.
After an evening spent meeting our group: German Lenny, French Audrey and Julian, Aussie Storm, Leader Vijak and his dog Dang; we were collected by Songthaew at 7am and began the 3 hour drive out of the district of Chiang Mai. We learned that we started so far away because the Karen people we were to visit were a very secluded tribe that were not visited by any other tours, in fact Pooh's tours only visited each tribe once a month so as not to overwhelm them. We stopped en route at a huge market to buy provisions; Vijak brought numerous ingredients in order to cook for us all. Storm bought rum!
Before setting off we pulled over and ate a lunch of rice and pork wrapped in a banana leaf and then with our heavy backpacks and a 3 day supply of water we proceeded to walk in to the jungle. We walked for 4 hours on the first day, leaving civilisation behind as we trekked, crawled and climbed deeper and deeper into the jungle. At one point during the journey Vijak pointed out a spec in the distance that I could hardly make out. "That is where we are heading" he said. We walked through thick undergrowth and down slippery hills, through rice and corn fields until we were walking along a weathered ridge with a pretty devastating drop to one side. It was along this stretch that Darren lost his footing and he fell. I screamed like he'd been shot 'Darrrennnnn…noooo' but it turned out that the drop had levelled out and he'd fallen a mere foot. I don't know who looked more stupid. But then I hadn't decided to wear a white t-shirt and proceeded to fall in a patch of mud so maybe he wins!
At long last we came to a clearing deep in the tangled forest and after crossing a bridge we had arrived at the tribal village. Young girls and children had run to watch us arrive and soon welcomed us into the heart of their home. Large bamboo huts stood suspended upon stilts everywhere. There were dozens of puppies and chickens running free and family upon family gawking at the newcomers; each and every one of them with a smile upon their face.
As night was falling we were quickly led to the 'bath'. The bath was a huge concrete trough full of green water. A young girl who looked no older than fifteen filled a bucket with the thick water and handed it to us to begin washing. We basically had to strip in front of each other in order to wash. The young girls found it highly amusing watching Darren and Lenny strip down to their boxers but then I found it pretty funny myself.
After our bath we were taken to meet the family that we would be staying with. We assembled our huge mosquito nets on the 'porch', rolled out our sleeping bags and then made our way inside the living area.
Inside there was the whole family: Mother, Father, Brothers, Daughters, Grandchildren and Friends all sharing this one room which also contained their kitchen which was a huge cauldron suspended over an open fire of coal. Vijak sat and began to prepare dinner, chopping vegetables and crushing chillies whilst the Karen men began to pass around their homemade warm rice whisky…woah that stuff could put hairs on your chest and as vile as it was I would never have refused it due to the insult it would have caused.
The Karen people speak Karen, not Thai so the language barrier was huge between all of us but it didn't matter; we gestured and laughed and showed them our cameras which they found mesmerising. One of the young children couldn't quite comprehend that his face was on the camera. It was such a grounding experience. We all sat on the floor and ate a ridiculously delicious meal together. Some with spoons but most with their hands and as pitch dark came by nine o clock, due to no light pollution; we all climbed under our nets and lay on the hard bamboo floor before falling asleep underneath the most beautiful night sky I feel I may ever see.
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