Getting In Touch With My Inner Mahout...
Arise! Shed your spent chrysalis! Dry your wings in the sun, born again, for Arch of the Jungle is back!
Blimeny heck, I just don't know where to begin. I'm going to take a couple of deep breaths, unwind, and compose myself. Everybody - join with me for some relaxing deep breathing before you read on;
deep breath one, iiiiiiiiinnn... ...out...
deep breath two, iiiiiiiiinnn... ...out...
deep breath three, iiiiiiiiinnn... hold it, and ...out...
OK, now that you're all chilled out, light up a stick of Nag Champa, and we'll get down to it. Comfy?
Right, I last posted on Thursday. Friday night I crashed your party, Saturday I said I'm sorry, Sunday came - you trashed me out again. That could be a Billy Joel song, so I'd better try again.
Get the feeling that I'm procrastinating?
This time, with feeling... Friday had us piled into the back of a little covered ute (the standard for organised transport up here), headed into the mountains to being our three day trek. Hopes were high, spirits were raised, and we'd all bonded with the group, which - excluding Smithcorp, myself, and my volleyball Julie, comprised;
Sara - (SWE) - Born in Iceland, lives in Sweden. Never seen an elephant before.
Dave - (ENG) - Looked like Beckham, with a touch of boy-band thrown in. Funny.
Claire with the hair - (ENG) - The best part about Dave, with green and white braided hair.
Lisa - (ENG) - Claire's sister, the 'rock' of the UK contingent.
Shan - (ENG) - Quiet girl, lovely and quiet. More on Shan later.
Des - (AUS) - A man with an enormous clip-on visor. Des isn't his real name...
Angela - (NZL) - Ex-St. Margarets girl, straight outta Seoul.
After a stop at the local markets (a LOT of handmade water bottle holders were sold, let me tell you...) to pick up supplies, and watch our guide ('O', no first, no last - just 'O') eat freshly roasted unhatched chickens on a stick, we headed straight for the hills. (I chose a lovely blue bottle holder, bought solely because the woman selling it had the reddest teeth out of the lot of them.)
Sadly, our mood wasn't to last, as one of our guides, who we dropped off just after the markets, had a rather nasty spill on his scooter as he overtook the truck. Luck was on his side, as he was one of the 7 people in all of Thailand who was wearing a helmet that day. Despite some nasty grazes (nasty is quite the understatement), lots of blood, and all the help that a team of 11 foreigners can manage, I can safely say that he's quite alright after his two nights in hospital. The rest of the trip was spent pondering how vehicles are actually quite dangerous, and how far down it was to the bottom of the valley from the road we were travelling on...
Still, we arrived safely, stopping for lunch at a little village just out of a place called Pai. After waiting for our guide to clean the village chief's gun (who I might add, is 72, with four wives, and his youngest son is only one year old!), and a brief wander, we took off into the wilderness, trailing several of the local children - some of whom weren't even sons of the chief.
I quickly realised that there really are a lot of things to look out for in the jungle; enormous millipedes, poisonous green snakes, and dodgy paths. But, I soon became a pro (as you would expect - I used to be a mineclearer) and made it through safely.
After a couple of hours of walking - stopping only to free some birds trapped in a net - we made camp at the local 5 star hotel; a thatch hut with spiders the size of crabs. Stranger still, in a country where crabs are the size of cats, but that's another story. We showered (the good old bowl and a bucket of water, naked in the jungle. Again) and changed, and soooooo proceeded the party games... As a good start, someone broke out the whiskey, which the aforementioned Shan polished off at an alarming rate, providing us with some of the best entertainment this side of Bangkok's darkest alleys. Her repertoire included, pole dancing, yelling English idioms at the top of her voice, and as the night wore on and her drunkenness overcame her; just counting out loud. We were a tight bunch by this time, and stories were traded with reckless abandon. We eventually wore down to just a handful of us, hanging out in the corner with the local guy who smoked opium non-stop while Dr. O pulled out some of the best card tricks I have ever seen in my life. It should be said that by this time, I may have been just a little more likely to fall for them than I would normally, but this only enhanced the experience.
Jules and I were proudly the last to bed (2:30am, very late by jungle standards), capping off our first day in the jungle right nicely I thought.
Morning broke, with coffee and brekky, courtesy of Dr. O, before talking Shan out of her hangover and heading down to the village for some chilling with the locals. Now, we're talking no electricity, no water, and not a lot of much except for pigs, dogs, chickens, lots of thatch, and of course the obligatory naked toddler - who ran around, and just generally got himself (yep, I could tell it was a he) grubby. Day two had us trekking out to the next village, stopping at a waterfall camp for lunch (more thatch), some sketching, and a swim in the icy water. Des came close to losing his visor, but hung on like the little battler that he is.
We were greeted at camp by a bunch of Burmese (we were pretty close to the border by now), selling all sorts of wares, and I just couldn't resist having Julie buy me a slingshot, which I am yet to quite master. As usual, Dr. O turned on a fine feast of selected curries, and we washed it all down with some fried tree caterpillars - quite tasty, if you don't mind the fact that you're eating, well, caterpillars... We managed to still be the last to turn in again, but had a good night's sleep before the last push out to civilisation the next morning.
Day three's hike was just a littley, compared to previous days, and it's amazing how much you forget to keep looking for snakes just because you haven't been bitten by one yet. We pulled up in a slightly larger village (the first road I'd seen in days - days!), and piled into a truck for the last attraction - rafting on bamboo rafts. Now, raft is used rather liberally here, as it really was little more than a section of wall, cut down and turfed into the river. Instructions were clear, men at the front at back, ladies in the middle. Rightly so I think - next thing you know they'll be wanting the vote...
Turns out steering a raft down a river with nothing but a 5m long bamboo pole is harder than it looks, but I called on the stunts I learned when I starred in 'Bamboo Poles of Doom' (Dreamworks, 1989) and after a few minutes was pulling 360's like Tony Hawk. We had a couple of spills (hey, I wasn't driving), and ended up wedged against a dead tree, with muddy water surging over my rippling chest, but our guide (Mr. X) and I managed to free our vessel and continue on to meet the other three boats, where much jocular 'pushing of one's new friends into the silty silty water' ensued. After an hour of this, we had come full circle - piled into the back of the ute heading back to Chiang Mai.
Twas the best of times, and I thank our team for the effort. If you're ever up here, even if you don't stay at the infamous 'Nice Place 2', go there for all your jungle trekking needs. This has been easily one the best things I've done here, and while my post today is mostly about things we've done, the scenery alone is worth it. Dr. O is an amazing guy, full of tall tales, good jokes, a swagbag of jungley knowledge, and he's pretty damn natty with the old slingshot.
We're off to Laos tomorrow, and I would like to thank all of you who contributed with poems. Please check them out here. Berin, I've forwarded yours to 'Non Rhyming But Pretentiously Clever Prose Monthly', hoping you'll be banned for life. As for your virus-y old computer; format baby, format...
Now, I have a question, who made the recommendation for Huen Phen restaurant? Was that you Berin? If so, since when have you been an expert on the culinary offerings of Chiang Mai? Suffice to say - we went, we ordered, we chose the whole plate of pork crackling with green curry paste on the side. Good call, really really good call my friend. Mystery Restaurant Recommender, my thanks go out to you. If you can prove your identity, you'll be the winner of this wonderful washer dryer gift set!
Well, just like at the beginning, it's audience participation time. Today's theme is questions, or if you're reading from Japan, 質問. I would like to invite all interested readers to pose a question to me in the comments section. As long as you sign your name, I will promise to answer all acceptable (it's a G-Rated blog, mmmkay?) questions in my next post, from Laos. Any type of question is acceptable, from 'How do you make the ladies swoon?', to 'I have a summer garden, but want something to add colour over the winter months, what should I plant?', and I will do my utmost to answer you.
We're bussing to the border tomorrow, staying our last night in Thailand in view of Laotian authorities, before taking a two day slow boat down to Luang Prabang. I'll let you know how hard the seats are, and just how slow a boat it is later. As for Laos, a cursory read of the Lonely Planet had this to say;
"Lao Aviation flies by sight alone. If the pilot cannot find a hole in the clouds, procedure is to return to the home airport, refuel, and try again. For this reason, many countries recommend against using Laos Aviation."
Sunny little forecast eh? I for one will be picking up a sturdy Ox and a saddle as soon as I get off the boat...
Your man in seat 7C, with a compass and a parachute,
Arch :)
PS: I'm also a mahout, don't forget that.
4 Comments:
When recently talking with a native Thai girl, who grew up in the states, about living in Thailand, she stated that she would never consider living in Thailand. The land is filled with corruption, and she would not feel safe and secure in a land where money pretty much buys you anything you want. As a foreigner, I didn't see this as clearly when I went there, though I did see a bit. Were you able to see or hear about anything of this nature? Would you ever consider living in Thailand? regardless of this sad state of governmental affairs? why or why not?
And one more, as I mentioned in chat: Humans and elephants have some of the most advanced brains on the planet. Yet, mice shake up elephants in the same way that cockroaches shake up humans. What is the physical reasoning behind this phenomenon? How can these potentially harmless, small creatures have such a frightening effect on us larger, more advanced animals?
detroitjapan@gmail.com
My starter for ten is:
What happened to your hair?
Love from the six foot muffin of love xxxxoooo
thats a damn good question.
the one about the hair i mean...
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