Hilltribe Trek Day 1

Today is the start of the trek to the hill tribes of Northern Thailand.

It's a long drive, so we broke the drive by stopping first at Mork Fak waterfall.  This is a 35m high waterfall that splits in several "showers" and drop in a nice pool where one can swim.  It was very hot when we got there (38C) so it was nice to jump in the water and stay under the waterfall for a while.  After the waterfall, we stopped in a local fresh fruit market and then on a road-side restaurant for a simple lunch.  The whole drive took a total of 5 hours on a very windy road, so we were very glad when we finally got to the trailhead for the start of our hike.

The hike started in a lush tropical forest where the greenery goes all the way to the horizon.  The area is higher than Chiang Mai, so fortunately, it wasn't as hot.  As we were hiking, we found very interesting flowers and insects.  It's the end of the dry season and some of the rain has already come, so a few of the rainy season plants (like the fire plant in the picture below) are starting to grow.  A favorite of everybody was the giant rolly-polly.  An insect that rolls itself in a hard ball when it feel threatened. It's very similar to the rolly-pollies found in California gardens, but much much bigger.

As we walked into the forest, the views of the mountains got better and better.  The faint mountains in the picture at the left are actually the Thai-Burmese border.  We also got our first glimpse on the far away Hill Tribe village where we would be spending the night.

The hill tribe people are minority ethnic groups in Thailand that has remained relatively isolated from the rest of the country for many years. A disastrous decision 80 years ago is still affecting them today... In 1920, Thailand was importing large amounts of opium from the British controlled East India Company.  The local demand was high and the government decided that they could save a lot of money by producing opium locally.  The area where the hill tribes live was selected as the best area to produce opium and the government gave incentives to the people there to switch from their traditional crops to opium fields.  This was well intended and it was thought as a way of improving the standard of life of the hill tribe people.  However, 40 years later, the opium trade and consumption was banned, but the economic dependence on the opium production by the hill tribe people was strong.  The result was that the opium production in the area went underground and it was taken over by the Chinese mafia.  With the support of Burmese warlords, the trade soared and private armies, fed by the opium income, roamed the area at the expense of the Hill Tribe people.  The government tried to give incentives to produce other crops, but all attempts to replace opium failed.  Opium is almost the perfect crop: high price, high yield, low volume, long shelf life.  Finding a replacement looked unlikely until Oolong Tea came along...  Now many fields in the hill tribe territories are producing this fragrant premium tea for export.  This crop, and tourism, gave an alternative to the Hill Tribe people and today opium production is almost eradicated.

Our accommodations on the Karen Hill tribe were very simple.  Our homestay was built on the traditional Hill tribe house layout.  The main house is raised from the ground on posts with relatively low roofs designed to shed water rapidly.  The main bedroom had a bamboo floor with a large raised platform where we had sleeping bamboo mats.  For protection against mosquitoes, we also had nets over our mats.  The "shower" was a simple bamboo pipe that channel the water flowing in the nearby creek.  

The kitchen was adjacent to the main bedroom and it had no furniture except for two heavy rock pots that are used to contain the wood fire for cooking.  Most people in the group helped cooking dinner by chopping vegetables, fish, and chicken under the supervision of our local guides.

 

 

 

After dinner, we ended the day with a nice bonfire.  It was a bit challenging to get it started as the wood is quite wet in this area, but with the help of the old trick of soaking toilet paper in hand sanitizer, we finally got it going.

That night, as I was laying on bed, I wrote a bit for this blog.  The light of my headlamp attracted insects that landed on the outside of my mosquito net.  Most of those insects were fireflies, so when I turned off my light, they started glowing all around me, a special treat just before going to sleep.