Indochina Express - Day 19 (Chiang Mai)

March 21st

Today's events will give us some exercise. We've got a hike along the hillsides of Mae Wang about an hour west of Chiang Mai (about 15 miles south of where we were yesterday) followed by a bamboo rafting trip along the Wang River.

Our first stop is at a local market to pick up some of the food that we will eat for lunch. This is a way of helping the local Karen people with the costs of hosting trekking groups like ours. Mr. Moon picks up dragon fruit, watermelon and bananas along with some vegetables. 

After another ride into the mountains, our driver stops in a village to pick up our Karen native guide. He hands each of us bamboo hiking poles. I'm not sure that this will help but it gives me something to do. Once we get out of the van, we walk straight up a hill between two homes. After gaining something like 500 feet in 15 minutes, I'm really hoping that the rest of the hike will not be like this! As we are walking up the hill, we see another group of hikers moving across the hillside above us. This is clearly the main route for trekkers in this area.

For a while, we are walking along a dirt road and while it goes up and down, it is mostly across the hills instead of up and down them. This is a good thing because the temperatures are already into the low 90's. As we go, we begin to hear a mountain stream in the valley off to our left. Our guide indicates that we will be following this stream up to a Karen village next to the Huay Hoi waterfall. Mr. Moon and our local guide have clearly known each other for a long time. In fact, at one point, Mr. Moon says that he has known our guide since before he wore pants.

Along the way, our guide shows us native trees (teak) as well as plants and bugs. In particular, he shows us a golden orb web spider that is black with yellow markings along its feet and abdomen. While we are impressed with the size of this spider (about 6 inches in diameter), our guide tells us that this is a rather medium sized spider. He says that Huntsman spiders can grow to nearly twice this size!

After about 60 or 90 minutes of walking, we reach the stream, and the trail gets more difficult. There are lots of ups and downs and the trail is often only 6-9 inches wide on the steam bank. With some effort, we arrive in a quiet area of the stream and find the trekking group that we'd seen earlier resting here. We keep going and hope that we showed this group of 20–40-year-olds that old people can still do things like this! At least, none of us fell in the stream within sight of the other group. After another 20 minutes, we find another quiet place to sit and rest:

While we are sitting, the other group passes us again. This is fine with us as we didn't want to hold them up on the narrow trail.

The ground up ahead levels off and the stream slows down. While we are crossing the stream, we see two elephants in the nearby field. Our guide explains that there are still groups using elephants for trekking or for people to ride in this area and that they are letting their elephants out to eat leaves on the bushes and small trees along one of their fields. Given how much they eat, we can imagine what would happen if a wild elephant wandered into one of these fields!

Our guide tells us that we are coming to his village, but first, we have to cross back over the steam on a wooden bridge that is shaped like a triangle - one board for walking along and two pretty flimsy looking handrails to hold on to. This is definitely a place where it is important to just concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other and not paying any attention to where you are or where you are going. Thankfully, we all make it across in one piece. Our guide then heads across the field toward a group of banana plants while Mr. Moon leads us into the village.

We see that the group that had passed us was already there. Some were eating while others were swimming in the pond under the Huay Hoi waterfall. Mr. Moon introduces us to the headmistress of the village:

Mr. Moon explains that she and her village have been supporting area trekkers for many years. Her English is not great, but it is good enough for her to ask each of us where we are from. Mr. Moon tells us that the village gets some of the cost of the outing and also sells some of their handicrafts to visitors. In exchange, the village provides the places to eat, chicken for our meal and the waterfall to cool off. He also says that the village would be grateful for any money we can contribute to the operation.

When lunch arrives, we discover why our guide went to the banana plants. They wrapped the chicken in it to cook just as the Chef in Hoi An had done with fish. Lunch was simple; chopped roasted chicken, rice, raw vegetables and fruit, but so good after a couple of hours of hiking! Before we continue our trek up the mountain, I grab a picture of the waterfall:

Mr. Moon tells us that we only have about an hour to go to the mountaintop village where our driver will pick us up, but now we are climbing so it is a lot more work. Beth has again turned bright pink and I'm hoping that she will be able to make it to the top. We did slow down a lot, but we all make it to the top. There, we find the village school which includes some dorm rooms for students who live far enough away that they only go home on weekends and housing for teachers (who are mostly from Chiang Mai) as well. We are very happy to see our van and get iced towels from the driver!

The ride back down the mountain was exciting with lots of switchbacks. We stop to drop off our native guide (who has left his scooter near where we picked him up) and then head to a local rafting camp on the Wang River.

Before the roads were built, the easiest way for the locals to get to market or move around was by bamboo raft. These rafts are constructed of about 6-7 large pieces of bamboo, each about 15 feet long and tied together at both ends and the middle. This is sort of like punting on the Thames where long poles are used to push the punt along except that the bamboo raft is much more flexible. Beth sits in the middle and our river guide is in the front. I'm told to stand in the back, but after nearly falling over backwards into the water a couple of times, I decide that the best way to do this is sit cross-legged and use my pole as if it were a kayak. Here are a couple of pictures:

I realize that in order to keep going more or less straight, I have to push off on one side while the kid in the front is pushing on the other side. It is close to Thai New Year so there are a lot of people on the river, and many have just pulled their rafts over to the side to enjoy the cool or to get drunk. There are enough impaired people that we run into a number of raft traffic jams where people have gotten their rafts perpendicular to the river and everyone crashes into them. For the people who have parked their rafts on the sides of the river, this is a great opportunity to splash anyone who comes by. We pass through an elephant camp and even get sprayed by a couple of elephants. I'm already soaked so I don't mind, but Beth is not pleased so I do my best to push us along as fast as I can.

There is one section with rapids where in low water times like this, passengers have to get out and walk around the rough spot while the guides take the rafts through and then pick us up again, but we eventually get to the pickup point and are glad to get off. Fortunately, it is hot enough that we dry off quickly and enjoy a coke with Mr. Moon, Chris and Mark before getting back in the van and heading back to Chiang Mai.

After a short rest at the hotel, we head back out for dinner. Based on Mr. Moon's recommendation, we're going to a place called The House by Ginger. We use google maps and it takes us along a bunch of alleyways that would be considered sketchy almost anywhere. But Mr. Moon has assured us that there are thousands of closed-circuit TV cameras in the old town and that we are completely safe going anywhere. When we arrive at the restaurant, we are really glad that we had the hotel make us a reservation because there are dozens of groups trying to get in. I would describe the restaurant's decor as a visit to Grandma's. There are pictures on the wall, various vases with and without flowers, rugs and tiles made to look like rugs, and sofas to sit on instead of chairs with patterns that were likely popular 100+ years ago. There are even a couple of walls hanging from the ceiling so that they have more wall space. The food is great and, of course, we get to finish it off with another mango with sticky rice!