Life with the Hill Tribes

(Chiang Mai August 21- August 24)

I love Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai might possibly be my Philadelphia. It's a tiny city compared to Bangkok, yet the next largest city in Thailand. The center of the city is surrounded by an unkempt wall and canal, with gates serving as entrances into the city center. There are temples all over the city that are easy to walk to, and everyone you greet along the way is smiling and welcoming. It's a very easy pace to manage, and totally walkable, which I am always a fan of. Our first night was a bit of a blur after our long journey there. I am lucky enough to have family friends just outside the city, Pong and Charin. They picked us up from the airport and welcomed their new kids for the week into their house. I had forgotten how goofy Pong really is, until he said, Oh you got to see your uncle Dtaw in Bangkok? Does he dress like man or woman these days?

I stayed up with them for a bit that night, helping Charin peel eggs for their restaurant, and catching up with family affairs. I helped them set up their cute restaurant in the morning before Jillian, Kayleigh and I went off to "rock the city", as Charin instructed. Charin's restaurant is simple; she cooks whatever she wants (this morning it was chicken basil, chicken lemongrass, vegetables with tofu, soy eggs or fried eggs, and other delicious looking dishes), and sells the dishes at room temperature for 30 to 40 bhat from 8AM to 2PM. I think she enjoys doing it, and her Thai food is great. One afternoon, I helped her make curry paste! I mashed up galanga, lime, chili peppers, lemongrass, and other secret ingredients to make a homemade curry paste! Very cool.

After our breakfast at Charin's, we set out to rock Chiang Mai. Thai iced coffee in hand, we visited some local shops with handmade fabrics, clothing, jewelry, everything, then went on our own temple tour. At one temple, a tuk-tuk driver stopped us and asked where we were from. He looked at Jillian and I, and said Italy, Spain? We said no, not Europe. Canada? No but close. Oh…Switzerland?! We laughed, where do you think Canada is? We’re from the United States. Funny that he guessed Canada and Switzerland before America, and made me feel a bit better about how terrible Americans are at geography.

On our temple tour, we saw Wat Phan Tao, Wat Chiang Man, and Wat Phra Singh, then walked outside the city to see Wat Suan Dok. Lots of temples, lots of pictures. Though Wat Phra Singh is supposed to be the most impressive, I liked Wat Suan Dok the best. It may have been the stray dogs lounging on the sides of the temples, or the white chedi making a sea of what looked like a cemetery. I guess it is a cemetery, since the chedi contain the ashes of the Lanna royal family members, or something like that. It's really beautiful with sunset lighting and mountains in the background. Supposedly you can see Doi Suthep in the hills, but the clouds were starting to take over the sky at that point. Our day in Chiang Mai ended with fettucini with pasta sauce. Not what you were expecting, was it? Neither was I, but Charin was more than happy to cook Italian for us, with roasted garlic and chili peppers on the side, of course.

The following morning, Jillian, Kayleigh and I were to start our adventure with a hill tribe outside of Chiang Mai. We got three days and two nights to stay with people from the Karen Village. It sounded a little fake and touristy, but it was the most exciting trip package they had. Also on the tour were Sylvia and Eduardo (from Barcelona), Andrew (Ukrainian living in France), and Ryosuke (from Tokyo!) Ryosuke let me practice my Japanese on him about as much as I would have let people practice their English on me while I was in Japan, which was not much at all. But it was fun to try, and I think he did respond to me once in Japanese. And Andrew was funny. He was incredibly tall and had a very adventuresome spirit. For some reason, he really liked to talk to me about deep topics. He started with tourism, saying he felt the trip wasn't really staying in a village with hill tribe people. It's set up for tourists, so the things they do aren't what they would have done in their everyday lives. Then we went on to talk about religion, global warming and how it’s affecting Bangkok, and organic agriculture. All my favorite topics!

The best part though was the people we stayed with. It was apparently brothers from a family of 10, though I think they just all called each other brother. The stories about these guys are endless. Joe and Ken picked us up and drove us an hour or two up into the mountains. We started with an elephant ride, which you would think I would have loved because of my obsession with elephants, but I found it to be abusive and lame. Our stupid mahout had a very pointy blade thing he was hitting the elephant with, and it was nauseating. This is where Andrew started talking to me about tourism, and how fake the elephant tour was. He made a good point; the elephants wouldn’t be abused this way if tourists didn’t ask to ride the elephants. After that we started the two day hike to their village. Ken led the way, and told us about his monkeys. He used to have two pet monkeys that would climb in the palm trees and knock down coconuts. One day, Ken tried to give his monkeys water. But they didn’t want water. So he gave them Coca Cola, but they didn’t want that either. So he gave them Chang, the beer of Thailand, and they drank the whole can. This made his monkeys giddy, and they climbed up in the trees. He heard a thud, thud, and looked around for the coconuts. But there were no coconuts! Oh, but he saw his monkeys, they had fallen from the palm tree cause they were drunk! We all laughed, sounded like a typical hill tribe story. Then Ken’s face suddenly changed, and he said “then the next day, they were dead…..good BBQ though!”

His brother, Joe, was just as nutty. Joe definitely couldn’t speak English as well as his brothers, though not from lack of trying. Joe would try really hard to speak to us, so hard that it looked like he was in pain from thinking too hard. When we asked him a question, like Joe when do we go to see the elephants? He would catch maybe one word. “Elephant? No…y-yeah! Elephant!” The best was our second day of hiking, he told his brother Som to stop walking. Som looked back and asked what was wrong. Joe looked like he had seen a ghost, he was so terrified. He pointed up into the tree, and stammered “c-c-ca-caterpillar” Yes Joe, we’ve seen hundreds of caterpillars. I’ll give him credit though, it was a slightly larger caterpillar. And that was the second person Jillian fell in love with over the trip. The first was our scuba instructor.

And then there was Som. He spoke the best English and usually led our treks, and was the most inviting because he spoke the best English, but Som had a dark side. He was very hostile sometimes, and for some reason it was so comical. Maybe it’s because he was kind of short. The first night, we just hiked to a “camp” which is just a bamboo hut for sleeping and one for cooking. We hadn’t met Som until we got to the camp. He came out of the cooking hut, and looks at me and says “Huey Kow?” I had never heard those Thai words before. He kept repeating it, each time more angry, so I just started counting in Thai. That’s all I really knew how to do. He looked at me and said, you don’t speak Thai? Huey Kow! You hungry? Ohh, I said. Yes. Gin Kow. I don’t know why he thought I could speak Thai. But for some reason Som liked me, and hated me. After our dinner of not spicy curry with potatoes and vegetables, he told me to come into the cooking hut for real Thai fish. So I went in, and they had Tom Yum Pla! Why were they holding out on us?! So he served me a bowl of soup, and poured me a cup of something from his water bottle. I figured it wasn’t water because he wouldn’t tell me what exactly what it was. “It’s jungle juice”. It was rice whisky. One by one, the rest of the tour group came into the hut to see what I was up to, and Som showed us the corniest hill tribe games, usually involving playing with sticks. And as we all tried to fit into the hut, he’d make each newcomer try his jungle juice. “You like you’re jungle juice Som, don’t you? “ I asked. “I don’t like jungle juice! Jungle juice likes me”. Oh yeah, that’s also the night that Som said he’s single. No wife Som? Nope, no wife. Then later he says he has a girlfriend. We told him, you know if you have a girlfriend that means you’re not single. He said, Oh! They’re not the same? Oh, I am single. Then the next day we met his wife. Som! I thought you said you were single? If you have a wife, then you are married, not single! He laughed, yes single! I have wife and two kids! His wife was beautiful too. That poor woman. Her husband is crazy.

The second day with our nutty tour guides was spent mostly hiking. We stopped at a waterfall to go for a dip, walked through rice paddies, tons and tons of rice paddies (my obsession with agriculture continually growing worse…the patterns are just so cool!) and had package ramen noodles for lunch in a cute little village with lots of cute pet pigs. I might have to have a pet pig when I’m living in Sukothai. This was the day where my love/hate relationship with Som really began to develop. First at lunch he told me that I was gonna have to find a pig for dinner. We had all opted for the pig roast, we just all had to pay a little extra. So he hands me a “stick” (it was more like a club) and says,
You! You kill pig for dinner.
Som…how am I going to kill a pig?
You kill pig with stick.
Okay Som.
Then as we were continuing our hike to his village he kept tripping me, or pretending to push me into the river, swatting or poking at my feet with his stick (this is really all my fault for choosing to hike next to him. I should have retreated to the back and talked to Andrew about politics). I forget what I did to deserve this comment, I think I tried to trip him, but he pointed his finger at me and said “I kill you” “What Som? You kill me?” “Later, I push you into waterfall” He half smiled, then glared and walled away. Little angry man. I don’t know why I enjoyed his company so much.

That evening, as promised, the village prepared a pig roast for us. Som and Ken sought out for a pig and killed it with a stick. It was cool (and a little sickening) to watch them prepare the whole thing. They washed her off, then burned off the skin, washed her again, cut her open, took out her guts, then put her over the fire, rotisserie style. That was quite possibly the most amazing thing I’ve ever eaten. The pig skin was so crisp and juicy, and the meat cooked to perfection. All it needed was a dip in prick nam pla, and we were in heaven. The villagers must love when the foreigners opt for the pig BBQ- they get a huge feast and a ton of money.

That night was hysterical, mostly because of Joe. Some villagers came over with their instruments and played some American on guitar, and some Thai songs on their instruments. But then we spent the rest of the night talking about lady boys, Thailand’s third gender. Joe’s brothers like to call him lady boy, and he always just giggles, and repeats lady boy. Never denies anything, but doesn’t quite get it either. Sylvia and Eduardo told us how they have a lady boy taking them up to Chiang Rai for a tour the next day, and if Joe wanted a lady boy, maybe they could work something out. Apparently their tour guide, Nadia, has plans to go to Korea to get the surgery to make her a woman because it’s cheaper there than in Thailand. Joe was intensely listening to this conversation, but all he got out of it was Korea. He just stammered “Ka-K-Korea”… then looked at Ryosuke and asked, “K-Korea?” “No no no”, said Ryosuke. “Japanese”. Everyone had a good laugh at that. Then Ken started to tell us about our itinerary for the next day, and meanwhile Joe is standing behind Ryosuke and Andrew, and puts his arms around their shoulders. “What are you doing Joe?” He just giggled, and his brothers just pointed at him saying lady boy.

The huts here were on stilts and were made from wood so were more structurally sound than our huts at the camp. Inside we just sleeping pads, blankets and a sort of pillow thing. The coolest part about sleeping there are the mosquito nets. For some reason I love mosquito nets, they make me feel so regal, oddly enough. I hope I have a mosquito net in Sukothai, along with my pet pig. I woke up a bit early in the morning, so I went down to see what Som, Joe and Ken were up to. The village was a little strange because in addition to the little hut for us, there were only two other little huts for I think Som, Ken and Joe. The rest of the village, maybe about a total of 50 people, were down the hill, so we didn’t get to see their dwellings or interact with them much. Som had just gotten back from taking his daughter to school. It takes her two hours to get to school. He takes her on the motorbike about half way I think, to where she can get another ride or maybe walks the rest. Joe came and sat with me while I was writing my journal. He asked me (kind of) about teaching English in Sukothai. He asked me about it often throughout the few days. And by asking I mean, he’d say “you teach English?” Our conversation never got much further than me telling him where I’ll be living and how long I’ll be there, and he’d point to what direction Sukothai was in. He communicated to me (I think) that he’d come visit me in Sukothai. And that he will teach me Thai. I think he wanted me to help him with his English, which I told him I would do. But honestly, Joe, I think there is no hope. Poor kid. He tries so hard. Jillian walked with him for most of that day, and spent probably about an hour talking about the place where he maybe sometimes lives in Chiang Mai, where he maybe lives with his maybe boyfriend, maybe friend. Oh Joe. One impressive thing that Joe told me was about the fish population in the river. We stopped at a waterfall on our way back down the hill, and I swam over to a rock along the waterfall. Joe came and sat next to me, and in his broken English managed to say “6 kilometers…no fishing….fish eggs…you fish here, no more fish babies.” So I think he was telling me that this 6 kilometers of the rivers is where fish lay their eggs, and fishing is prohibited or the fish population will decline. Something like that.

It was sad to leave the Lampu village, though we didn’t really get to know it. We hiked back down the hill and took a silly little bamboo raft down the river for a bit. It sounds fun, but it was actually just kind of awkward, touristy, and unnecessary. Then they drove us back down to Chiang Mai. Joe tried to give me his phone number so I can call him when I’m in Sukothai. I think that’s what he was trying to do. So I gave him my cell phone to enter his number, and he looked at it, thought really hard, pushed a couple numbers, then erased them, then gave the phone back to me. I think he just forgot his phone number. Too bad. I was hoping to one day see all of them again.