Trekking in northern Thailand

Having had a hot shower, some western food and a good night’s sleep in a proper bed, I’d like to tell you about the 3 fantastic days of trekking in the hills north of Chiang Mai that I have just got back from.

The hills in the north of Thailand are home to ethnic groups of people who migrated over 100 years ago from the southern part of China and settled in Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Vietnam and Thailand. The main seven tribes are, Karen, Hmong, Yao, Lisu, Lahu, Lawa and Akha, each has its own distinct culture, religion, language, art and style of dress. Nowadays the tribal villagers supplement their farming income by hosting tourists in their villages and selling local crafts.Many tourists wish to travel into the hills in the north of Thailand and see these tribes living in their traditional way. The irony is that just by doing this, the lives of the tribal people are inevitably changed by the interaction with tourists. Some tourists come back disappointed with the experience, when they see satellite dishes in the villages, people using mobile phones or realise that in many cases the people normally wear jeans and T shirts and only dress traditionally for the tourists.

I get picked up from my guest house and travel in one of the open-back trucks that provide transport in and around Chiang Mai, collecting western tourists from various guest houses and finally we were 11 people, from France, Italy, Canada, The Netherlands, Spain and me from England. Before we leave the city of Ching Mai we stop at the tourist police staton to get our permits for the national park. The nice young french policeman tells us that he is here to help us if we have any problems, but if we do any drugs there is nothing he can do and we are, 'in the shit'. We drive for about an hour north of Chiang Mai, firstly across the flat land that the city lies on and then the scenery starts to change as we climb into the hills and we are travelling through lush farm plantations of bananas and other crops, with glimpses of the hills beyond. We stop in a small village of Thai people and met our two local Thai guides Tom (20) and Pong (46) and have lunch at a house in the village. We take off our shoes and sit crossed-legged on a raised bamboo platform beside a rice field and are offered chops sticks or a fork to eat noodles.

Lunch

After lunch we start walking out of the village uphill along a concrete road. It is very hot with no shade. We walk past fields of papaya trees and see women working in the rice fields, cutting the rice with hand sickles. They lay the cut rice down in bundles to dry.

Papaya plantation

Harvesting rice

Thankfully before too long we turn off the road and out of the direct sun as we take a shady narrow path that goes steeply uphill into the jungle. We walk through vegetation of wild banana trees, bamboo forests and teak trees and as we climb the sweat drips off our faces and midges and mosquitoes buzz around our heads and legs.

Jungle paths

We stop every half hour or so for a break to catch our breath, cool down slightly, drink water and spray on more insect repellent. Tom, the younger guide, has a large jungle knife with him that he carries in a bamboo sheath and every time we stop he cuts some bamboo and makes something from it. Over the course of the trek he makes chops sticks, a pin for one of the girls’ hair, drinking cups and spoons. Eventually we come to the top of the hill and can look out over the valley.

View from the hill top

Tom with his knife and me

After this high point the walking becomes easier and we follow a track that leads gently downhill passing through farm land. Banana trees are growing beside the track and Tom uses his knife to cut off one clump for us to share. That is the best-tasting banana ever!

Looking at the banana trees

The carefully cultivated farm land opens out as we drop downhill, with the young cabbage crops being sprayed with water from tall pipes.

Farm land

Cabbage field

In the early evening we arrive at the village we are staying. This is a village of the Hmong people – an ethnic group which originated in western China. The houses are almost all newly-built of concrete blocks and corrugated iron roofs although some are still made of bamboo in the traditional way. Pong explaines that the Thai government provides this new housing and allows the people to farm the land, originally as an incentive to cease heroin production and turn to making a living from more acceptable farming crops.  Although these people originally held animist beliefs, nowadays in the village there is a Christian church. (Animism is the belief that there is no separation between the spiritual and physical or material worlds, and souls or spirits exist, not only in humans, but also in all other animals, plants, rocks, natural phenomena such as thunder, geographic features such as mountains or rivers, or other entities of the natural environment.)

Hmong village

We are staying the night in a house on the edge of the village. The room we are to sleep in is made from bamboo, with a line of mattresses on the floor and mosquito nets hanging over them.

Bedroom

Pong and Tom cook us a delicious green curry and after dinner a local man, who looks totally spaced-out, pays us a visit and offers us mariujana.
We drink some beer around a camp fire and laugh as we play a silly counting game that involves us getting our faces blacked when we make a mistake.

Kitchen

Dinner time

At night it gets very cold and the one blanket provided for each bed is not enough, so as the night progresses we gradually put on more and more clothes. The bamboo floor creaks and moves if anyone turns over or gets up and the cockerels start calling before it gets light. We emerge bleary-eyed in the morning, but Pong and Tom are in no hurry to move on and breakfast is a slow affair, as toast is  prepared on the open fire.

Kettle's boiling

Pong making toast

After breakfast the group splits up, as some people are doing a 2-day trip and some 3-days. So we say our goodbyes and now we are down to 5 people, with Tom as our guide as we set off walking again. The scenery is equally as beautiful as yesterday, but the walking is harder, with fallen bamboo to climb over and with the path climbing steeply and then dropping down as we cross small streams.

Scenes from day 2 walking

Spot the person in this picture - dwarfed and camouflauged by the vegetation

When we stop to rest Tom continues with his bamboo whittling and over the course of the morning he makes 6 sets of chop sticks for lunch time.

Tom making chop sticks

We stop for lunch by a small stream and Tom makes cones out of banana leaves, pinned together with bamboo and serves us noodles with vegetables, which we eat with his home-made chopsticks.

Tom making banana leaf cones

Lunch

After lunch we walk a little more and come to a waterfall and we stop here for a swim and a mess-around. The water is pretty cold, but very refreshing after the walk. The boys, like boys do, swing from creepers and drop into the water, making Tarzan noises.

Waterfall

From the waterfall it is only a short walk to where we are to spend our second night. We come out of the jungle into a clearing where there are a couple of bamboo buildings with no gas or electrity. There are no people here at the moment; only 3 friendly dogs lazing around, some chickens pecking in the dirt and a family of small black pigs, with tiny piglets. Tom says that a family lives here and are working on their farm further down the valley and they will be back later. The place is not totally authentic however, as the family do not live here all the time - it is a set up for tourists, but we were very happy with the jungle experience.

Clearing in the jungle

Piggies

We make ourselves at home in our bamboo building, which is similar to last night’s, but on stilts off the ground and with more space for only the 5 of us.

Our bamboo hut

While we are relaxing and taking turns showering under a cold water pipe, we hear a motor bike approaching, together with a tinkling sound. It is an ice-cream man! He has an insulated box on the back of his bike with home-made lollies inside of various flavour and a little bell on his handle bars to announce his approach.

Ice-cream man

The family arrive back from their work in the fields. These people belong to the Lahun tribe, which originated in Burma.

Lahun mother and daughter

Lahun boy feeds rice to the dogs

That evening we have another delicious open-air dinner, this time of red curry, followed by a camp fire.
The next morning 3 of the group go off with Pong to do an elephant trek and rafting, so there are more goodbyes to be said and then it is just me and Christine, with Tom, left to finish the trek. It is another fantastic day of walking, initially through the jungle and then through the farm land of Tom’s village.

Me in the rice fields

He takes us to see his fields and we watch the local people working on harvesting the rice.
The women are tying up the bundles of dried rice and these are then put onto a frame which the men carry to stack the rice in a heap.

Rice harvest

We meet Tom’s cousin who is working in the fields. He speaks very good English and used to work as a guide, like Tom. We ask him about the work of the harvest and suggest it is very hard work, but he laughs and says, ‘Not really hard. We are all working together in this beautiful place and we are happy.’

Finally we finish our walk by going through one last village of a tribal group called Lisu, where they have a small market selling hand-made goods to tourists.

Lisu village

Lisu girl (who doesn't really want her photo taken)

The whole thing has been a fantastic experience and I’m tired, dirty, but happy. I feel as if I have had an authentic jungle experience and that our impact on local people was positive, in that they gained some benefit from the money we spent on the trip and from buying their crafts. I hope I am right in thinking this.