The Trek
Our trek was good fun, but did not live up to the high standards set by last year.
We were trekking with four Canadian boys, who seemed about 18-21, two English guys in there early 20s and a Dutch man named Robert, with the four of us there were 11 altogether. Our guides name was Bon.
We left our hotel at about 09:15 and headed up to our tourist office in a songthaew with a few bits and pieces to leave in their storage area and then headed towards the market to get supplies for the three days. At the market I met our guide from last year, who we had emailed earlier. We had been hoping to get him to be our guide again, but he told me he didn't have time to email me back. I only got to say hello to him and shake his hand because his songthaew of trekkers was driving off just as he saw me. It was cool to see Dyo anyway and its a pity we didn't get him to be our guide.
The first day was the toughest, with a long uphill slog. We took a lot of breaks though and I found the second day last year a lot tougher. Sheena found it tougher this year though. It took about four hours to reach the top. For the last 40 minutes or so we were trekking with a couple of other groups because they caught up with us. We reached the village eventually anyway and everywhere was coated in a thick fog. It kind of spoiled the view, but was also quite scenic in its own way. It was very damp up there with the fog and everything, so I knew there was no chance of my sweat soaked clothes being dried out for the morning. All 11 of us stayed in a big room together. There were no mosquito nets, which surprised and annoyed me and Sheena as there had been last year.
There were horrible tribal kids running around our room and battering each other with two plastic baseball bats the Canadians had bought. They were cheeky little feckers and stole some sweets from one of the Canadians bags also. Thankfully the disappeared somewhere after a while. There was also a deaf and dumb man there, named Bye, who lived in the home we were staying in. When I first came out of the room after changing clothes he was swinging around a baseball bat and making noises. I didn't realise he couldn't talk at first and thought he was just unable to speak English, but it became obvious soon enough. At first I din't like him because he was being kind of rude, gesturing that Sheena was fat and one of the English guys, James, was smelly. I didn't like the first village much at all, with the rude cheeky kids and a woman trying to sell Sheena stuff who just wouldn't take no for an answer. The food was also not nice, we got a chicken stew, but there were big bones in the chicken. The four of us were unable to drink because we take our malaria tablets on Monday nights, which was a bit annoying, but we had a bit of a laugh that night anyway.
The next morning we had time to look around the village a bit, and I took some decent photos. In another part of the village from where we were staying, I was photographing a wild piglet and a kid, who was playing nearby, came over and stuck out his hand and said something. At first I thought he said "tabla" which is the Karen word for thank you, but he repeated himself and he was actually saying "ten baht". The cheeky fecker was demanding money off me. It pissed me off a lot and I told him there was no way I was giving him money (knowing he wouldn't understand me anyway) and walked off. Sheena told me later that when she was walking back past the same kids one of the girls had tried, unsuccessfully to spit on her. That village was horrible.
We set off at around 11 and the deaf and dumb chap, Bye, was coming with us. He was good fun, it was enjoyable trying to communicate with him and just having a laugh with him. When we first met him he would point to himself and flex his muscles, and then point at someone else and shake his head. So sometimes I would point at him and then give him the thumbs down, and the thumbs up to myself. You probably had to be there.
The second day was not as strenuous as the first but I sweated my head off anyway. We stopped half way through at a massive waterfall which we took a brief dip in. The current was incredibly powerful and it was very rejuvenating. For lunch we had some sort of noodles which were very tasty.
That night we didn't stay in a village, we were staying in a river camp. There were mosquito nets there and I skilfully choose the only bed which didn't have a net over it. It turned out that it didn't really matter. Our guide told us that the next day there was no trekking at all because we were just walking as far as the start of the white water rafting. So that night we got really drunk. It was great craic and we had a bit of a sing song with our guide and another guide who was with a different group.
The next day we did the white water rafting which was fantastic and bamboo rafting which was nice and relaxing. Last year I had had to steer the raft, which was not relaxing at all, so it was nice to be able to just sit there and enjoy the view. That was the end of our trek. We spent the next day just relaxing in the hotel.
We were trekking with four Canadian boys, who seemed about 18-21, two English guys in there early 20s and a Dutch man named Robert, with the four of us there were 11 altogether. Our guides name was Bon.
We left our hotel at about 09:15 and headed up to our tourist office in a songthaew with a few bits and pieces to leave in their storage area and then headed towards the market to get supplies for the three days. At the market I met our guide from last year, who we had emailed earlier. We had been hoping to get him to be our guide again, but he told me he didn't have time to email me back. I only got to say hello to him and shake his hand because his songthaew of trekkers was driving off just as he saw me. It was cool to see Dyo anyway and its a pity we didn't get him to be our guide.
The first day was the toughest, with a long uphill slog. We took a lot of breaks though and I found the second day last year a lot tougher. Sheena found it tougher this year though. It took about four hours to reach the top. For the last 40 minutes or so we were trekking with a couple of other groups because they caught up with us. We reached the village eventually anyway and everywhere was coated in a thick fog. It kind of spoiled the view, but was also quite scenic in its own way. It was very damp up there with the fog and everything, so I knew there was no chance of my sweat soaked clothes being dried out for the morning. All 11 of us stayed in a big room together. There were no mosquito nets, which surprised and annoyed me and Sheena as there had been last year.
There were horrible tribal kids running around our room and battering each other with two plastic baseball bats the Canadians had bought. They were cheeky little feckers and stole some sweets from one of the Canadians bags also. Thankfully the disappeared somewhere after a while. There was also a deaf and dumb man there, named Bye, who lived in the home we were staying in. When I first came out of the room after changing clothes he was swinging around a baseball bat and making noises. I didn't realise he couldn't talk at first and thought he was just unable to speak English, but it became obvious soon enough. At first I din't like him because he was being kind of rude, gesturing that Sheena was fat and one of the English guys, James, was smelly. I didn't like the first village much at all, with the rude cheeky kids and a woman trying to sell Sheena stuff who just wouldn't take no for an answer. The food was also not nice, we got a chicken stew, but there were big bones in the chicken. The four of us were unable to drink because we take our malaria tablets on Monday nights, which was a bit annoying, but we had a bit of a laugh that night anyway.
The next morning we had time to look around the village a bit, and I took some decent photos. In another part of the village from where we were staying, I was photographing a wild piglet and a kid, who was playing nearby, came over and stuck out his hand and said something. At first I thought he said "tabla" which is the Karen word for thank you, but he repeated himself and he was actually saying "ten baht". The cheeky fecker was demanding money off me. It pissed me off a lot and I told him there was no way I was giving him money (knowing he wouldn't understand me anyway) and walked off. Sheena told me later that when she was walking back past the same kids one of the girls had tried, unsuccessfully to spit on her. That village was horrible.
We set off at around 11 and the deaf and dumb chap, Bye, was coming with us. He was good fun, it was enjoyable trying to communicate with him and just having a laugh with him. When we first met him he would point to himself and flex his muscles, and then point at someone else and shake his head. So sometimes I would point at him and then give him the thumbs down, and the thumbs up to myself. You probably had to be there.
The second day was not as strenuous as the first but I sweated my head off anyway. We stopped half way through at a massive waterfall which we took a brief dip in. The current was incredibly powerful and it was very rejuvenating. For lunch we had some sort of noodles which were very tasty.
That night we didn't stay in a village, we were staying in a river camp. There were mosquito nets there and I skilfully choose the only bed which didn't have a net over it. It turned out that it didn't really matter. Our guide told us that the next day there was no trekking at all because we were just walking as far as the start of the white water rafting. So that night we got really drunk. It was great craic and we had a bit of a sing song with our guide and another guide who was with a different group.
The next day we did the white water rafting which was fantastic and bamboo rafting which was nice and relaxing. Last year I had had to steer the raft, which was not relaxing at all, so it was nice to be able to just sit there and enjoy the view. That was the end of our trek. We spent the next day just relaxing in the hotel.
posted by Alan at 12:53 AM
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