Home :: Journey with Gina
:: Adventures in Thailand
July 23, 2000
Adventures in Thailand
Northern Thailand
Forget sleep once the roosters start in. This gets the pigs going, then the cats and dogs. I wonder how Narong, his wife and their two sons ever rest. I grope beneath the blanket for my flashlight then check my watch. 4:30 a.m. Peering through the mosquito net I can't see a thing. I try for more rest but the cacophony of cock-a-doodle dos pops off in the distance then explodes nearby.
Like it or not, it's wake up time in the Karen hill tribe village of Northern Thailand.
My week in Thailand began in the city of Chiang Mai, 700 kilometers north of Bangkok. From Chiang Mai we drove further north to Mae Malai and Chun Yen before reaching the town of Pai, where we would begin three days of jungle trekking and visits with the Karen and Lahu tribes.
Forty minutes from Chiang Mai we stopped at the Mae Malai market. Chaiya, my guide, gave a highlighted tour: Eel, frogs - some live, some barbecued - fried grasshopper, eggplant, catfish, ground lizard, lemongrass, tofu, chili, soybean crackers, wasp larvae, quail eggs, carrots, durian, cabbage, coconut, cilantro, morning glory and snakehead fish.
We walked past one of the insect stalls and Chaiya pointed.
"Look!" He picked up a bug and bit off its head. "Mmm, yummy."
"What kind of insect is it?" I asked.
"Don't know English name but Thai people call it, 'Meng John - Mr. John.'"
Next, we stopped for lunch at Pong Duat Hot Springs. Chaiya spread our food across a picnic table: Vegetarian Pad Thai for me and small plastic bags of cucumber, sticky rice, green chili cooked with onion and garlic, steamed soybean wrapped in banana leaves, bok choy and Mr. John.
Chaiya encouraged me to try the chili with my noodles. I reached over the heap of Mr. John and spooned some of the spicy green and white mixture onto my plate. He pointed to the sticky rice and the bok choy, which I also sampled.
"Fresh lime," he said, chewing and gesturing toward the green wedges and then to my bok choy. As I squeezed the juice onto my vegetables, Chaiya tossed something small, green and cylindrical into my dish.
"What is it?"
"Eggplant. We have many kind." He wagged a finger at the sticky brown lump in the banana leaf. "Vegetarian."
"No thanks," I said, legitimately stuffed and suspect of anything that looked like ground Mr. John.
"Soybeans! Vegetarian!" Chaiya insisted. I helped myself to a tiny scoop. It was tasty. "I told you."
Later, when we hiked to the Mork Fah waterfall, Chaiya kept pulling leaves from trees and hammering at me to eat them. "Good for stomach. Good for headache. Good for skin."
"No, thank you," I said. In taste-testing I draw the line at leaves. The last time I ate a wild plant to be polite was in St. Kitts. Afterward, I was sick for a week.
"Geenaah..." Chaiya never spoke my name. He always sang it the way a child does when closing in on his prey during a game of hide and seek.
"Geenaah...why you no try?" Oh, Lord. This was going to be a long week.
En route to the Lahu village in Phanom, we rafted through a small cave. Phatuelue, our local guide, led with me and Chaiya, behind. "Follow him," Chaiya instructed as we walked along the cave wall to our right. Suddenly I felt myself slipping down toward the left. "Oh...oh!...whoa...! I yelled as I slid chest-deep into muddy water.
Chaiya and Phatuelue each grabbed an elbow and hoisted me up. Back on terra firma, Chaiya scolded me.
"Why you no follow him?"
"I did follow him."
"But he no in the water!"
Then Chaiya started laughing. Phatuelue joined in and my guides were still cracking up as we boarded a long, narrow bamboo raft.
"It's not funny!" I said, dripping with mud and throwing my walking stick onto the raft.
We drifted down the river in silence.
"Geenaah..."
"What?"
"You angry?"
After a moment I giggled. This infected Chaiya and Phatuelue and launched all three of us into hysterics.
I washed off in the stream just past the cave. Only minutes into our four-hour trek to the village, my left leg buckled.
"There's something wrong with my knee," I told Chaiya. The slip in the cave had been the second of three mud falls that morning.
"Can you walk?" he asked. I was in pain. Yes, I could walk, but for how long? I'd looked forward to this trek and now debated risking it. But common sense and a grasp of the big picture - the rest of my world tour - triumphed over disappointment.
Now I dreaded the transportation alternative. "Okay," Chaiya said. "You ride elephant."
Chaiya had been unsuccessfully promoting the elephant trek since the previous afternoon. I'd seen one too many elephant-run-amok videos. Besides, I did the elephant thing in India.
"No, not same," Chaiya said. "India like circus, like zoo. This real elephant trekking in the jungle, in the river, up the mountain." All the more reason not to be riding one.
With my good leg, I followed the Mahout's instructions and stepped onto Phasador's lowered head and then climbed into the chair on his back. If that didn't distress him, I supposed nothing would.
For the next four hours, Phasador took me for a bone-jangling, breath-holding, muscle-tensing ride. When he descended into rivers, I flexed every muscle to keep from falling out of the basket. When he ascended mountains, gravity jammed my lower back against a knot in the wood. The front raised rim of the chair dampened the circulation in my legs, which I slapped every so often to awaken. This had the added benefit of keeping at bay every species of insect that had decided to join me for the ride.
But my physical discomfort yielded to an awareness of an animal who could crush me with his foot yet who shrieked and reared at the sight of a butterfly; a creature who despite his mass, walked without making a sound; a gift of nature who moved trees with a swat of his trunk yet shrank from horses, frightened by the clopping of their hooves.
"Huwhee, hmm, Phasador," was the Mahout's lullaby that both pacified and motivated the elephant onward. When the Mahout's machete neglected to open our path, Phasador heeded the command to clear the way.
Phasador didn't like the bugs any more than I did. When the sweep of the Mahout's switch failed to provide relief, he lifted his trunk toward his face and blew. The Mahout's and I simultaneously wiped our faces on our sleeves.
Then children appeared. We were close to the Lahu village.
After a two-hour nap and dinner, the children formally greeted me. Dressed in their New Year's outfits, they ranged in age from about three to eleven. Circled around a fire, they offered me the gift of song.
I joined in, as many of the songs included hand gestures. The children crossed their palms across their hearts while Chaiya translated: "They sing about a teacher." The children made a digging motion with their arms. "Insects, too."
After a while I asked Chaiya if I could sing back. "Oh, yes!" he said, and then made the announcement in Lahu. I started with one chorus of "500 miles" then decided I needed something a little more up tempo and transitioned to a hand-clapping version of "Oh, Children, Go Where I Send Thee."
Chaiya asked if I knew any children's songs. "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" just about exhausted my repertoire. But then, the big finish: The Hokie Pokie.
The next morning, it wasn't the roosters who roused me. It was Chaiya.
"Geenaah..."
"What?"
"Get up. You walk." Ahead of us lay a two-hour trek to the village of Mae Sa Long. I tested my knee on level ground, down a slope and up a set of stairs, all to Chaiya's satisfaction.
After breakfast, I grabbed my bamboo walking stick and followed behind Phatuelue through the cornfields. Chaiya gave it a rest for five whole minutes. And in that tiny respite, I anticipated my next adventure in Thailand.
|
