On our way out of town we picked up the 8 other people that we would be hiking with in this order.
Ben – A 31 year old British “professional” world traveler has spent more than a decade working odd jobs all over south east Asia and Australia to save up enough money to move somewhere different every few months. Came to find out he had been married once for 3 years but his wife did not like to travel and made him settle down in Brittan for just over a year and he is now separated from her. He has been living in various villages in the Philippines for the last 8 months and is here in Thailand for three weeks to visit and travel with his friend Jen.
Jen – 31 year old Swiss girl who runs her own business in London met Ben while traveling in Australia 11 years ago. She speaks multiple languages is very well traveled and was easy to get along with right away. Bre and her talked a bit about therapy as her business back in London was holistic therapy for people suffering from work related injuries.
Andy & Milly - German couple around 30. She a school teacher on winter break and he a sales and marketing manager for a certain line of German cars called Skoda, a little sister of VW.
Daniel & Maria – Both are 28 and met while working for Emirates Airlines three years ago and have been dating steady since meeting. Daniel is South African from just outside of Cape Town where his family has an 800 hectare ranch that used to offer guided hunts of just about anything you could want to shoot. However, recently his father has been limiting the amount of hunting and increasing the number of safaris, wedding, and corporate trips to preserve the wildlife and was something we both could appreciate. Although he was a bit rough when it came to his care for the animals Bre and him never got into any arguments, something I was grateful for. Maria was from the country of Malta. Now you may be asking yourself where the hell is Malta??? but rest assured hardly anyone knew where that was. It’s a small island off of the coast of Italy and is home to just 400,000 Maltese and it turns out that Daniels ranch is larger than the island of Malta.
Annette – 30 years old and also from Switzerland she is a process engineer working for Nestle improving processes but more importantly life for the people on the factory floor. She was very proud to be involved in helping to better the working conditions of the factory workers and was able to increase productivity by adding a 5th shift of workers; giving their people more time off between shifts.
Ann – Also around 30 works in one of the largest chocolate factories in Switzerland as a chemical engineer aka food chemist. She had a very interesting education background where she studied in India doing her master’s thesis on anemic women. Her team was able to find that most women were not getting the right amount of iron from their diets for two reasons: One because they don’t eat red meat which is full of a certain acid (I could not understand the Swiss word) and helps the body retain iron. Two they have almost no vitamin C in their diet which has a similar affect to the acid found in red meat. Since the cows are a very sacred animal in India her team was charged with finding another way. Her master’s thesis suggested the government fund research to create rice that was fortified with vitamin C, something which the University she was working with started working on once she left.
Been – 27 and our Thai tour guide was awesome. He made sure we all had everything at all times and was our cook for every meal. Though his English was a bit hard to understand at times he did his best to try and explain things as we went along.
We were all together and on our way north chitchatting and getting to know one another for the first hour before we stopped at a market for 30 minutes. Been bought all of our supplies for the weekend and we got ourselves some water and a few snack to tidy us over between meals. The market was like no other any of us had seen. This was a real Thai market full of every Thai cooking staple plus a lot of exotic thing like dried bugs, worms, strange animal parts, and yes, snake soup. I got a picture of the bugs but snake soup picture would not come out well because of the lighting so I am left with only the memory.
We hopped back in the Tuk-Tuk and spent another hour driving north to the elephant camp for some lunch and a ride on the elephants. Though a little hokey and touristy we did get to ride on an elephant feeding it bananas as we went along a loop trail that lasted just about an hour. The elephants were well taken care of and we learned that they were only trained by certain tribes from the age of 2 to 4 and were taught with care and respect.
We grabbed our rucksacks and started the 2 hour hike toward the mountain where we would spend the night with Luan Tribe. I can admit now as a backpacker having hiked a lot of the California Sierras I now have a new found respect for the Thai jungle and its rugged terrain. All 10 of us were shocked with how difficult the hike straight up the mountain was. With just over 2400 feet of elevation gain in less than 6 miles this was probably the steepest hike I have ever done. At one point I was thinking a rope would be nice and how they undersold the young fit part just a bit. Our leader, Been, has been doing this same hike every week for two years and was basically running between all of making sure we were okay and got us up the mountain safely but sweaty just before sundown.
We followed Been to host families bamboo hut on the side of the hill and were shown our sleeping arrangements. Again I think they undersold it a bit here but it only consisted of a straw mat on the bamboo floor with two blankets and a pillow thingy. We spread our stuff out and headed up the hill to watch the locals play some Thai soccer before the sunset over hills of Laos about 100 miles in the distance. The Thai soccer or, Tacrot in Thai, is a mix of volley ball and soccer. Its played by three people on each side on a half size volley ball court with similar rules except you cannot use your hands to get the rattan ball over the net. I picked up the rules quickly and watch the kids play until it was time for dinner.
We all sat on the floor and enjoyed dinner by candle light, our only choice, then sat around as one of the village members played some guitar starting with Thai songs and finishing with some American classics. We went to bed fairly late and had a rough night’s sleep with the roosters starting calls all over the village at about 3 am. Surprisingly enough the floor was actually somewhat comfortable but we were both happy to get up once the sun was out because sleep was not going to happen with all of the noise.
Been made us breakfast which consisted of a few scrambled eggs and 4 pieces of toast. Bre had found some puppies earlier in the morning and decided she was going to feed them her eggs and some toast. The four of them could not have been happier as they inhaled everything she gave them. At about 9am we packed our sacks and started the climb up and out of the village. We stopped again at the school and all attempted to play Takrot for about a half hour. Bre had the best kick reverted back to her karate roots launching the ball way over every ones heads on several occasions.
We picked up our stuff and spent the next hour climbing up the mountain then we took a sharp left and headed straight down. Some of the sections of the trail were so steep that we had to help each other down as people were constantly slipping over the wet soil of the jungle floor. We made our way down through the lush jungle until we came upon a river that we followed for a few hours. We came upon a small village at the bottom of a water fall where we had a well deserved lunch.
We spent the next two hours walking slowly along the river taking a break at a different fall before ending up at another small village along the river. There were only two happy ladies running the village and invited us in with a warm hello. This village was even more primitive then the last with only a bucket of water for a shower the guys elected to bathe in the river one at a time. The girls took their turns in the river as well and once we were all clean we celebrated the hard days hike with a beer around the fire as we waited for dinner.
We were able to eat at a table tonight that was made entirely from bamboo from the forest. Though not that sturdy it held us long enough to eat and return to the camp fire. We spent the next few hours chatting and getting to know one another. I was able to use a trick I had learned in New Zealand when we went rafting in a cage to take a picture of us with only the light from the camp fire. Setting the exposure time for 15 seconds we all held very still and the image came out as well as I could have hoped.
Sleep at this camp was much quieter however much colder being next to the river deep in a valley. Bre and I hardly slept and were again happy once the sun started to come out and warm things up a bit. We had the same breakfast as the day before and packed our things. We said goodbye to our two hosts and headed down the river to meet our river rafting guides just over an hour away. As we made our way out of the jungle we looked back at the mountain we came over in disbelief that there could have been a trail on something that steep but leave it to the Thai’s to figure a way.
Once at the rafting camp we through our stuff in the back of a truck got our life jackets and helmets and listened to a quick briefing on the commands from our guide. We were in the water within 15 minutes of arriving and were on our way down some rapids in the first 50 feet of the river. Though it was not very challenging the river raft lasted about 30 minutes and had two sections that were less than class II. At the end of the rafting section we all boarded handmade bamboo rafts for the last 20 minutes to experience how the Thai’s moved down the river long ago and still do today. Bre and I ended up on separate rafts at the head steering the raft with a long bamboo pole by pushing off of obstacles.
We arrived at the end of the river to a smiling Been who had lunch waiting for us at a small camp. We played some ping-pong and Frisbee as we waited for our ride back to town. The trip was an excellent way to see the jungles and experience some of the different tribes that have been in these mountains for hundreds of years. We both agreed that we were a little under prepared and if we did it again would have proper gear for hiking and sleeping.
Bre and I had to catch an overnight bus that would take us straight to Bangkok arriving at 4:30am. We took and expensive taxi ride to our hostel Lub-D in the Patpong district and have been catching up on emails and writing for the last few hours before we set out and explore this city. We were able to talk to Bre’s mom and found that her grandma had passed peacefully at noon on the 27th. We are both relieved to know that she did not suffer any pain and is now with grandpa Bill. Hope you all had a Merry Christmas and are looking forward to a Happy New Year celebration.
--Ryan & Bre
Trekking Photo's
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| Day 25 to 27 - Jungle Trek |
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