[Written on] Sunday, March 17, 2013
I am sore, in pain, and exhausted, but I have just come back
from an experience of a life time and I wouldn’t take it back for anything!!
Remember how I said on Wednesday night that I was scouring
the internet with Kathlyn for our next adventure? (Kathlyn is the other
volunteer here in Thailand and we got to meet each other last weekend for those
of you with bad memory.) Well, she messaged me that night telling me that she
just found out that she had Friday off. She was thinking about going up to
Chiang Mai to do an overnight trek in the jungle and wanted to know if I wanted
to come with her. After a few questions I was all on board for a spontaneous
adventure…except we had a few problems.
- I still needed to get Friday off
from my volunteer place.
- I was not equipped to go hiking.
- We would be leaving the next night
on an overnight train or bus.
- We hadn’t booked anything.
- When we did try to book something,
they said we had to wait 24-48 hrs to confirm.
- I’m really out of shape.
First
things first, I talked to Chadathip (or Na Goi) to ask her if it would be ok
if I took Friday off. She consented and told me to make sure I told the center
as well and then proceeded to tell me the different options we had to get up
there. We originally wanted to take the overnight train but she stated that the
train always arrives late…up to two hours late! Then she said we could take the
overnight bus which was almost the same price as the train or we could fly up
which would be double the price…but it would only take us a little over an hour
instead of 10 hrs.
Kathlyn
and I decided that we should take the overnight bus to ensure that we got there
on time (since the tour started at 9:30am) and would get the tickets at the
station the next night.
Thursday
came around and we still didn’t know if we would be able to book a tour or if I
could take off plus I still didn’t have shoes to hike in. Yes, I forgot my
shoes in Malaysia. Don’t judge me.
Before
I left the center that day, I talked to my “boss” – well it was more like I
talked to one of the other employees who understood more English – and got off
Friday. Another problem checked off. Mid-afternoon we got confirmation that our
tour was booked (huzzah!!) and we were [mostly] set to leave that night! We
decided to meet near her place and then there was a moment panic when I
realized I had no clue how to get there and so I SMS’d Po. After
miscommunication and confusion we finally talked on the phone where I passed
the phone to both her mom and dad so they could help me further since she
wasn’t coming home early that night. They finally decided it would be easier if
her mom (we will refer to her as Meh from now on since that’s what Po calls
her) took me since I hadn’t gone to the MRT by myself yet. Another thing
crossed off the list…wait, that wasn’t on the list to begin with. Oh well.
Anyway, I stuffed things into my computer backpack when that was all figured
out. Please notice I said computer backpack
and not a hiking backpack. I couldn’t
be bothered to get another backpack and shoes before I left. I hurriedly
scarfed down some amazing tom ka gai for dinner before we left for the station.
We boarded one of the buses at the bus stop near the house and after many
twists and turns arrived at the MRT station. It was so cute b/c Meh grabbed on
to my wrist so she wouldn’t lose me amongst the throng of people there. Once we
were down underground we walked down a looooong corridor to get to the actual
station itself. After getting our tickets, well it was more like a token, we
boarded the right metro and in a few minutes arrived at the stop where I was
supposed to meet Kathlyn. We didn’t go up right away b/c we realized there were
4 different exits and I wasn’t sure which one she was at. So after confirming
with her on the phone we went outside. The only problem is that she was
actually on the other side of the highway. Lol. After a few minutes of
confusion she finally found us and Meh left us to commence our adventure.
We
hailed a taxi and went to the bus station where we queued up for a ticket. We
were thinking about getting a ticket for around 9:30pm but the only tickets
left were for the last bus at 10:45pm. Good thing we were even able to get a
ticket!! Since it was only 8:45pm at that point we had two hours to kill. We
went into the waiting area and amused ourselves by watching the Thai soap
opera/drama that was showing on the TV and laughing at it, trying to figure out
what was going on. It was so dramatic!! Everyone was getting stabbed to death but
living!! Our bus was finally called so we boarded onto a pleasantly nice bus.
There was ample room for our feet (or backpack in my case), the seats reclined
to a decent place, and there was a back massager (well, kind of), and they even gave us
blankets and snacks/drinks! It was hilarious though, b/c each seat had their
own speakers on either side of the head rest which you could control, but
Kathlyn and I kept on hearing Leona Lewis’ “Bleeding Love” being played over
and over again somewhere unidentifiable. We settled ourselves for the long
journey and attempted to sleep. Notice I said “attempted”? Yeah, our attempts
were no bueno. I woke up a bunch of times (the roads were less than stellar) and
then couldn’t sleep towards the last few hours b/c it got cold. Yes, it actually
gets quite cool at night up north and it didn’t help that the bus was very much
air-conditioned. We finally arrived in Chiang Mai around 8am and blurry-eyed
and sleep-deprived we took a songthaew (http://www.travelfish.org/blogs/thailand/2011/02/22/public-transport-in-chiang-mai/)
to the tour’s office. We were dropped off near a Starbuck’s and since Kathlyn
needed caffeine in her system and I was starting to get hungry, we made a pit
stop there as well as changed our clothes/washed up. After we were done we set
off to find the office…except we didn’t know where to go, so I called them…and
they lady ended up having to go outside to find us. Haha. We confirmed our trip
and asked where a good place was to buy shoes, since I still didn’t have any (I
only had my very worn out flip-flops). She pointed us down the road and we set
off to find the store…except it was closed. Fail. So we went back to the office
to see if there was another place. Well, actually we went back to ask how
difficult the trek was and we were told it was quite difficult (grrrreat….). I
was desperate at this point (and praying), so she pointed us to a place that
was 10-15 mins down another road. Unfortunately, we were supposed to be picked
up for our tour in less than half an hour. So we took a chance and hailed a
songthaew and were off once again. It definitely would’ve taken us more than
10-15 mins to walk there, I’m sure. We went into the first shoe store we came
across and in about 5 mins I found a pair of sneakers…albeit a tiny bit big. We
then set off to find sunscreen for Kathlyn and finally found some after then
second store. We took another songthaew back and breathed a sigh of relief. We
were set!
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| The back of a songthaew |
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| Why, hello, Starbucks. |
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| Some....river? |
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| My new shoes!! |
A
few minutes later a songthaew stopped by to pick us up. There we met our first
travel buddy, Gail, from Scotland. We
drove for a bit and stopped by to pick up another couple…only to drop them off
somewhere else to pick up a different couple, Ema and Greg, from Slovenia,
whose English was, by far, better than many Europeans’ I’ve conversed with. All three of them are so awesome! Right
before we left, Kathlyn and I had a moment of panic we realized we were on the
wrong truck since everyone was doing the 3 days 2 nights trek and we were only
doing 2 days and 1 night. It was definitely the company’s fault but we were
assured that it didn’t really matter since it was the low season and we could
join a different group the next day. So we all set off on our adventure and
stopped by a local market where we bought last minute things and where our
guide, Rombo, bought food supplies. We were off yet again and drove about an
hour up into the mountains stopping only once to pick up Copi or Cop, for short
(or Kop? Or Kopi? Idk how to spell it), who came with us to learn English. We
were dropped off in the middle of nowhere and thus started our hiking.
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| Food cart |
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| Dried chilies |
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| Open market. |
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| Tomatoes? Some sort of veggies? |
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| Curry paste! |
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| Mangoes!! |
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| Let's see how many ppl we can fit in a songthaew...thankfully this wasn't our truck. Haha! |
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| Gail and Greg |
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| Ema and Kathlyn |
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| Sun dried bananas |
Ok,
I would’ve really enjoyed the hiking more if:
-
I had gotten an adequate amount of sleep that night
-
My backpack wasn’t so darn heavy
- I was actually in shape.
Unfortunately
for me, I had none of the above and had to move onward, albeit a very slow
onward. We stopped at various waterfalls (unfortunately, none of which I got in
b/c I didn’t have my swimsuit on and plus I didn’t want to be wet while
hiking), stopping at one waterfall to eat lunch which consisted of fried rice
in little plastic bags, taking in the beautiful scenery as we hiked, or in my
case, looking down where I was planting my foot so I wouldn’t trip and fall
off the cliff. The mountains up in the north really are beautiful and so
serene! We hiked for 5-6 hours with much of it being straight uphill. For those
of you that know me, know that I don’t hike very often, much less up a mountain
(ok, so they call them hills, but they’re mountains in my book). I get
overheated easily and wipe out after too much exertion. I'm such a weakling when it comes to elevations. Haha. Let me tell you, there
were many stops for me along the way and guess who was in the back? Yupp, you
guessed it. Yours truly. I really need to get back in shape, though. The whole
time we were going up, in my head I was like, “Why did I agree to do this?!?!”
Hahahaha. Even though it’s cooler here in the mountains and up north, we were
all sweating big time, or at least, I was. Haha. Rombo was walking like this
was a breeze since they do this all the time.
*Disclaimer: There's a lot of shots of Kathlyn's backside since I stayed in the back. Hahahaha. The back of yo' head is RE-DICULOUS!!! Lolol.*
Anyway, I was pretty exhausted by
the time we finally reached the village we were spending the night at. It was
such a relief to see it! We all gratefully sat down at the long table and drank
cold water and Cokes that we got from the ice box and put on our “tab”, which
was a piece of cardboard with our names and tallies on it.
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| I don't like drinking Coke, but when I do...I drink it in a different country. |
Let
me describe to you the village we were at. First of all, we were way up in the mountains extremely far
away from proper civilization. Second, all huts were made from wood with tin or
natural roofs, and by natural, I really mean leaves. Third of all, there was
absolutely NO electricity. And fourth of all, there was little to no running
water (which meant squat toilets that you pour water down to act as a flush).
How’s that for primitive? We took “roughing it” to a whole other level. I’m not
even kidding. The living conditions were not much better. There were old
mattresses and sleeping bags/blankets on the floor of one of the huts and holey
mosquito netting. Not only were there a bunch of dogs, chicken, and ducks
running around, but there were two pigs, one tied up and the other one roaming
free as it wished, as well. Kathlyn and I were using the shower and toilet
shack, respectively, to change and all of a sudden I heard squealing…partially
from the pig and partially from Kathlyn. Apparently the pig tried to join
Kathlyn in the shack, hahahaha! It was quite the experience, let me tell you. I
guess they really wanted you to get a feel for how the hill tribes live in
these parts. It made you appreciate the little things in life a lot more.
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| The pig that tried to join Kathlyn in the bathroom with her. Hahaha. |
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| Our humble abode. |
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| Begging for food. |
Our
group sat along the table under our hut talking getting up occasionally to take
pictures of the noisy pig and the meandering cows. Since it didn’t take us long
to get settled we talked some more before dinner, getting to know each other
and learning about how our countries are both similar and different. This is
also when I discovered the nasty mosquito bites all over me. These were not
normal bites…these were the weirdest bites I’ve ever seen. My skin bubbled ever
so slightly with either blood or something else and then they swelled and the
redness had a diameter or 1-2 inches on each bite and they itched like crazy
(still does at the time of this writing). I’m very allergic to mosquito bites
and unfortunately they know this b/c they always seem to find me and bite me
like crazy. I have at least 20 bites on me currently. Yes, feel sorry for me.
Hahaha.
 |
| My stellar bug bites. |
So anyway, considering the fact that the “shower” was almost
non-existent, we all used wet wipes to get the sweat off our bodies. Thank
goodness for wet wipes and hand sanitizer!! By the time dinner was ready the
sun was already setting and since there was no electricity whatsoever (and only
a few small flashlights) they lit two candles on either side of the food. These
were not the big candles that we’re all used to lighting…these were only a bit
bigger than birthday candles. They dripped melted wax on the table and placed
the candle in it to act as a candle holder. We took having a “candle-lit
dinner” to a whole other level too! Haha. Though the light was sparse the food
was absolutely delicious! We spent the rest of the evening sharing stories,
explaining things about our different countries, enjoying the camaraderie, and
talking and teaching a few of the locals English. I got out my Thai phrasebook
that I bought since it has the words actually written in Thai as well as the English
phonetic pronunciation. At some point we all got up to look at the stars b/c
there was no light pollution (the upside of this!) and tried to make out some
constellations. Ema was quite good at it and also explained how to tell if the
moon was going to become a new moon or full moon. You learn something new every
day! By 9:30pm it had gotten chilly and most of the villagers were in bed.
Apparently they go to sleep here quite early since there isn’t much electricity
which means not much nightly entertainment that we’re used to. We were told
that one of the neighbors had a small solar powered TV that lasted for a short
amount of time but was very static-y most of the time so it’s not even worth
trying to watch TV for them. Before you
get the picture that we were living in a different century since we were in the
middle of nowhere away from civilization (because, let’s face it, we really
were), there WERE small roads and a few motorbikes running around the area AND
our guide still had cell service (at least, I think he did, b/c I sure didn’t).
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| Our only source of light (and any flashlights we had) |
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| Copi reading by candlelight and learning English. |
So since everyone had gone to bed we
collectively decided to get ready for bed and sleep as well. You would think
that after not getting enough sleep that past night and hiking all over
creation to the point of exhaustion I would sleep like a rock. Unfortunately
for me, that was not the case. It took me a while to fall asleep since the hut
would sway every time anyone moved even an inch and plus I always have a hard
time falling asleep in new environments in general. I woke up a bunch of times
that night and towards the morning woke up to the sound of cicadas, birds
chirping, roosters crowing (at 4:30am nonetheless), dogs barking, and babies
crying.
To be continued........
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