Carrie and I with our packs ready to get going on day two of our trek

It was too cold to trek in India or Nepal. Too out of the way in Sri Lanka. We didn’t have enough time in Malaysia. So, when we arrived in Chang Mai, the home of trekking in Thailand, we decided to splurge and take Mr. Whiskey’s “non-touristic” three day and two night trek through the jungle.

The biggest difference between this and the standard “touristic” trek was that most places send the group to the same local villages that they have been using for nearly 30 years. The locals have adapted and show the trekkers what they want to see, but the actual culture is long gone. Also, as most visitors opt for the touristic trek, much of the three days is spent surrounded by countless other Westerners. No thanks.

Day One:
Our group started out as nine people: a French couple who fought the whole time, three other European guys, us and two local guides: Mr. Ton (the leader) and Jackie Chan (his helper). It didn’t take long to make an impression, as at our first rest stop at a local market I ripped my pants and had to sit on the side of the road in my boxers as Carrie sewed them up. Later on the drive out of town we saw a local woman hand cranked petrol from an oil barrel into a soda bottle while watching lines of Westerners waiting to take an elephant ride. Finally, we left civilization behind and headed into the mountains to the northwest of Chang Mai.

A local Thai woman sews at the first village on our trek

The ride was long and muddy and I spent most of it crushed between three people leaning and the metal guards at the back of the truck. With 4WD in gear we sloshed and skidded our way up, past a fogged in lookout point to a local village for lunch and a tour of tour of the town. Primarily a weaving village, we saw local huts, outhouses, farm life, kitchens, a quick sewing demonstration and a giant satellite dish on everyone’s roof. Carrie and I joked that it was as if someone was giving us a tour of Murra (the village Carrie volunteered in in Nicaragua). The people seemed immune to our presence and really seemed to keep up a traditional life mixed with just a few modern comforts.

“Aren’t we supposed to have Sherpas to carrying our stuff,” I wondered as I piled six liters of water into my already stuffed pack to begin our walk. I guess that only comes in Nepal. So, with at least 10kg on our backs we trekked across grassy flatlands and up steep and never-ending hills. I’m pretty sure some of them were actual at a 90 degree angle. At one point the steepness got to the Danish guy who had to lay down for a bit then have Jackie Chan carry his bag for him.

Nearly three hours later, after lots of awesome viewpoints and fascinating lessons on the indigenous plant species, we turned a bend and saw two massive elephants standing around waiting for us. Carrie and I were the first to get on back of one of these giant beautiful animals and begin our ride, complete with a bag of small sugar cane cubes that the guides called elephant chocolate.

Carrie and I atop an elephant

Every few steps the elephant would stop, put its trunk up above it’s head and beg for a chocolate. When we gave it one he would lower the trunk, eat it and show his joy by flapping his ears. Then, the trunk would raise again for more chocolate. We used these times to actually pet the elephant, whose skin felt like leather sandpaper with very course hairs sticking out of it.

The ride itself was about 45 minutes long, though the elephant only walked for a minute or two in between breaks and only when its master made some grunting sound that meant forward. We stayed on a well trodden path and had no control over the elephant’s pace or movements…which I’m surprisingly OK with.

What was surprisingly not OK was just how unpleasant the actual ride was. We imagined something out of Aladdin with plush seats fit for a king. In reality, the seat is a plank of wood on the elephant’s back and the safety rails that come up to keep riders in are just square metal poles that are always digging into the spine. We spent much of the time being jostled into the poles, hanging on for dear life as the elephant went downhill or enjoying the feeling of our butt bones becoming one with the wood planks. Still, we rode on an elephant and it was awesome!

Our hut on night one of the Chang Mai Jungle Trek

One rain-induced sprint through a muddy and slippery rice terrace later we arrived at our home for the evening: wooden cabins on stilts sitting on the edge of a valley facing the sunset. As the rain continued to pour we sat around, drying off, playing with the two local kids who also lived there, watching our elephant hosts sniff around our porch and waiting for dinner. When it came we feasted like kings, as Mr. Ton had prepared us a five course meal that I rank as one of the most delicious I’ve had in Thailand.

Dinner was supposed to be complimented by rats that we caught in the field and roasted over a campfire, but the rain put the kibosh on that plan. Instead, we sat around listening to Mr. Ton and Jackie Chan playing local instruments as well as a guitar. Some songs were in Thai, others were classic Western ditties and others still were them singing about the day and tomorrow’s plans. A fun night, but after a long day I quickly retreated to sleep in our shared room with six mattresses lined up on the floor. The toilet was up the hill behind our shack.

Jackie Chan toasts bread over an open fire for breakfast on our second day of trekking

Day Two:
Day two began at 7am, as we awoke to find Mr. Ton toasting bread on a stick over an open fire and boiling eggs for breakfast. To spread the butter and jam he had carved us all engraved knives out of wood; ours remain unused and in my pack. In addition to knives, Mr. Ton also whittled slingshots and we spent much of the next hour shooting away at beer cans and stuffed animals. The best shooters, we found, were the two local kids who probably get to practice daily.

All out of rock slingshot ammo, we headed off into the jungle again for a full day of walking. Our first real break was lunch after nearly three hours of trekking and consisted of a heaping portion of veggie noodles that we had been carrying in our packs all morning. Wrapped in bamboo leaves and eaten with chop sticks whittled out of bamboo by Mr. Ton, our meal left no eco-footprint in the forest.

The whittling continued later in the day when we stopped for a while and Mr. Ton chopped down a bamboo tree to make us all cups and again that night when we used hand-carved forks for dinner. The whole idea of the trek was to teach methods to survive in the jungle alone. I guess if surviving involves making a full set of utensils then I should be golden.

The Karen Shan village we stopped at on our second day of trekking

Two more hours of walking later we finally arrived at the indigenous village located in a valley of a remote mountain. Inhabited by only seven families and 53 people, the town had only a handful of buildings and more farm animals than anything else. Immediately upon our arrival we were greeted by a villager plopping down a bucket of Coke, beer and water for sale. She then proceeded to return up the hill to join her friends and family in sitting there and staring at the new group of foreigners invading their village.

Solar power panels donated by the Thai government were attached to a couple of the houses, but there was no need for it as none of the locals seemed to have any electronics except for a radio. There was a pig pen, water buffalo roaming freely, cows, roosters, chickens and animal poo everywhere. One highlight was watching a local woman gather all the chickens and put them in their baskets for the night. Her job was pretty easy, as she just tossed seeds into the baskets and the chickens jumped in after them.

Dinner was another amazing feast prepared by Mr. Ton but was eaten alone. Other than continued staring and the occasional smile, interactions with the villagers were non existent. Carrie and I were a bit annoyed by this, as one of the reasons we splurged was to have a more of a real experience. I guess it’s tough when there is a massive language barrier and the only person who can bridge it (Mr. Ton) did not even try.

Setting off a home made hot air balloon

The awkwardness was put on hold briefly when Mr. Ton began to make a hot air balloon out of paper, bamboo sticks, toilet paper soaked in wax, metal ties (like twisties without the paper covering) and fireworks. We all signed our names, he assembled it and the whole town watched as he set it off into the night sky. The thing must have gone up for 10 minutes, setting off the noisy fireworks at lengthy intervals, before poofing out and returning to earth miles away.

No sooner than the balloon show ended did the villagers head off in their own directions again. The rest of the night was spent sitting around a small campfire listening to Mr. Ton play more instruments. Looking in the sky was another treat, as the stars were out in force with no city lights around to dull them and were awe inspiring.

Carrie demonstrates how to use the clay set we bought the kids at a 7-11

Day 3:
My third day began by sleeping through hours of rooster crowing and pig squealing from the pen below our shared room on stilts. After waking up and having breakfast, Carrie gave the local kids the gift we had bought them at 7-11: a toy clay set with fun shaped cutters. For the first time, all the parents and kids came around and got involved as Carrie demonstrated how to use the cut outs. It was a very cool sight to watch.

Our hike for the day was pretty straightforward. Two and a half hours in the jungle, avoiding leeches, crossing streams on logs and rocks, sweating like crazy, watching butterflies frolick in poo. Pretty standard really, though we could have done without the French couple fighting for hours on end, crying and making us all wait for them to air their business.

Finally back in town we headed down from the mountains onto bamboo rafts for a journey downstream. These rafts are literally ten or so bamboo trees tied together Huck Finn style with string. We had two rafts total: each with three trekkers and one guide. Steering and propulsion were accomplished by taking 10 foot bamboo poles and sticking them into the water to push against the river bed.

A local Karen tribe woman at our village stop after the second day of trekking

In reality, although we were given two poles per raft, the guide did all the work. We used our sticks more to try and capsize the other raft…a game which our guides seemed to have more fun playing than us. An hour later we got off the rafts and watched as the staff disassembled each one and brought the individual logs uphill for transport back to the start.

Our final stop on the trek was a waterfall that was by far the largest I’ve seen in more than six months of travel. Two-tiered, we arrived at the bottom for a quick swim. The water was bone-chillingly cold and I actually lost my breath when I first jumped in. That didn’t stop me, however, from jumping off a rock and cannonballing into the water a few times before we left.

All in all I really liked the trek. Sure, there were a few niggles along the way, but we got to do tons of hiking, saw amazing views, were surrounded by nature and visited multiple local villages. Well worth it and a wonderful experience.

Walking through the thick

Sounds of the jungle at sunset

Putting the chickens away at the local village we visited on the second night

Playing and singing by Mr Ton and Jackie Chan our first night Jackie is playing a plastic oil bottle with spoons

Hot air balloon liftoff

Chang Mai Jungle Trek Elephant ride

Carrie does a Tarzan

The inner square of Wat Doi Suthep

The day after our cooking class we rented a motorbike and headed to the outskirts of Chang Mai to visit a couple of temples that would have cost us 5x more to visit by tuk tuk. Our first stop was the Wat Doi Suthep: a monastery atop a mountain centered around a golden dagoba. The drive to get there was long, uphill, windy and tons of fun.

After parking, we still had another 300+ dragon-scaled steps to climb before get to the main temple area. We paid the foreigner entrance fee (there’s always a fee for us) and entered a square complex featuring numerous beautifully decorated and steeped buildings that screamed Asia. Gold tiles adorning the outside walls, dragons on the roofs, the whole nine yards. Many buildings had Buddha statues inside and I couldn’t help but laugh at the group of monks taking photos of each other in front of them. Monks are not supposed to embrace technology, let alone each one having a camera or phone.

With my incents, candles and flowers during our puja at Wat Doi Suthep

Inside the square was a glistening golden dagoba surrounded by dozens more Buddha statues. There were numerous prayer areas throughout and monks situated around to take donations and offerings. At one point Carrie and I did a puja (the Indian term for walking around a holy sight three times). We bowed our heads in prayer and held flowers, candles and incense. After our third lap we lit the candles and incense and put them, along with the flowers, in designated holders around the dagoba.

Having finished up at Doi Suthep, we once again hopped on our motorbike for a slow ride down the curvy mountain. At one point I was passed by a bike with two school girls driving and another time a cop honked at us just to say hi and call to attention the fact that we were two white people riding a bike. The drive continued in the city as the downpour started, pelting my face at 60kph, as I followed a bike filled with four locals who I was following to Wat Umong.

Wat Umong, also known as the forest monastery, is a beautifully shaded plot of land that monks visit during the day to pray, learn and meditate. It is most famous for a series of underground tunnels built hundreds of years ago to keep a wandering monk occupied and in one place. Above it is a large dagoba and a statue of an emaciated Buddha, complete with skinny rib cage and veins sticking out. I have seen hundreds of Buddhas on this trip, but none like this.

A pedestal filled with Buddha relics in various stages of decompisition Wat Umong, the Forest Monestary

The tunnels had healthy Buddha statues at every bend, complete with locals praying and very faded artwork adorning the ceiling. Outside there is a large circle where thousands of little Buddha and Hindu God statues lay in various stages of decomposition. Some were new and intact, some headless and some just a little stump. I couldn’t help but think that my mom would be in heaven there!

Just before leaving we stopped at the meditation question room and spoke to a monk who told us that we could actually go there the next day for a free meditation retreat. I was a bit hesitant and worried, as I am incapable of staying awake under the best of conditions, but it was one of the top things Carrie wanted to do so we signed up.

Getting a Thai exit stamp from the Chang Kong, Thailand, border office

Land border crossings vary from country to country. To get into Singapore and Malaysia we had to enter big buildings with lots of security and lines and have our bags screened by x-ray machines. Before entering Thailand we had to pass a health examination. And then there was Laos.

Six hours after leaving Chang Mai by bus, we arrived in the small border town of Chang Kong, located on the shores of the Mekong River. A quick tuk tuk ride later we were standing in a line to get our passport exit stamps from a small booth on the side of a dusty road. Once stamped, we headed down a hill to a dock area, bought a ticket from a tent for double what the locals pay and boarded a dinky wooden speed boat.

Once another dozen people got on board, the boat departed Thailand and made the two minute journey across the Mekong to the shores of Houayxai: the Laos border town. Some passengers had to step in shin-deep water to get off the boat. I jumped the few feet onto the shore and had Carrie pass our bags over. We walked up a small barely-paved road for around 25 feet before hitting the arrival section, which was nothing more than two small office windows and a few tables with benches to write on.

Laos visa on arrival

Unlike other countries where you must have your visa before leaving home, Laos offers visas on arrival. For $35 per person, payable in US dollars or Thai Bhat (for a $10 surcharge), the Laos government gives you the legal right to stay in the country for 30 days without leaving (aka, a single-entry visa). Want to go check out another country and come back? Another $35 please.

We filled out the forms, provided the passport photos that we’ve been carrying around since NYC, paid the cashier and moved onto the adjacent window for a passport stamp. With all paperwork taken care of, all that was left to do was finish walking up the small hill, show the one police officer at a guard post that we had our stamps and visas and enter Houayxai.

Carrie and I were joking that we couldn’t imagine a border anywhere with one single guard. What happens if someone runs by? Do they chase after him/her and leave the border unguarded? Do they just shrug their shoulders and say meh? Who knows!

The tarantula in our room at the Karen Shan village after our second day of trekking

One of the many things that kept us awake and laughing during our night at the local village on our jungle trek was a cat in heat who meow’ed loud and often…especially when it thought the two-stringed instrument Mr. Ton was playing was another cat and would reply to every chord played.

The British guy in our group was trying to light a campfire unsuccessfully when a local woman came over and got it pumping in less than two minutes.

The French people on our trip kept getting leeches all over them. I got lucky and only had to flick a few off of my shoes.

There were ant highways all over the place. Literally, thousands of them walking across the path, up trees, everywhere…and always in line.

After schlepping them around for six months, I’m finally glad I bought GoreTex shoes for this trip.

I asked Mr. Ton, our guide who has been guiding for more than 20 years, if he had ever had a couple fighting like that. He said no, he often has to wait for them to kiss but never to fight.

Leaving the waterfall provided one final adventure, as my flip flop broke and I had no choice but to take a plastic bag and tie it around my foot so that I could walk the 15 minutes back to the truck through the jungle..

Bottled and treated rainwater is the cheapest drinkable water for sale in Thailand, though it all too often has the taste of the cheap plastic it is bottled in.

Chang Mai sunset

For some reason when you enter Thailand by land they only issue a 15 day visa. We rushed back from the trek to get to Laos, but were very happy to see that I had counted days wrong. This extra two days allowed us to bike around Chang Mai and do our meditation retreat.

The national anthem seems to be played every day at 8am, as we had to stop in our tracks at the Chang Mai bus terminal when it came over the loudspeaker. The same thing happened waiting in the Bangkok train station a week earlier.

After being buying the last two tickets for our bus ride to Chang Kong, Carrie and my seats were not together. We asked our respective seat mates very politely if they would mind trading and they both refused.

After contemplating the pros and cons of urinating in a plastic bottle in a room in the back of the bus as I reached mission critical, I was happy to find that the room I was considering using for cover also housed a real toilet. Crisis averted. File that one under too much information.

One the bus ride to Chang Kong I managed to get the seat that squeaked non-stop when I leaned back. It didn’t help that the bus had no shocks.

One of the most controversial Buddhas, note the starving look with full ribs and veins showing. This is at Wat Umong, the Forest Monestary

It wouldn’t be a hotel in the third world if it didn’t at least have a few ants running up the walls.

People just don’t understand the concept of vegetarian. Carrie asked for something with no meat at the monastery and the woman replied, “no meat. Only egg and pork.”

Apparently the world of used book selling in Chang Mai is cut throat, as the American owner of the biggest one in town told us a story about how he had death threats and is constantly at war with a local shop owner. He had to get the corrupt police on his side to keep in business.

I must say that I really am going to miss riding two wheelers when we get home.

We were woken up at 7am every morning in Chang Mai by the staff knocking at neighbors’ doors to get them ready to go trekking.

What I can only assume was an army of birds all pooped on me while walking out of our hotel in Chang Mai. There was enough poo to get my arms, shoulders and head while still leaving some to splatter the ground. Gross!

I saw a foreigner walking around with a Yankees hat that had a British flag sewn onto it. Is he embarrassed to be an American or proud to be a Brit?

An ATM security guard was passing the night away by weaving a fishing net that hung down from the light post.

The only reason we even checked out Wat Umong was due to a recommendation of a girl I was on the same college dorm floor as. We got back in touch after she found my blog while researching Sadhana Forest, where she will be volunteering at this September.

Men walking around the golden Dagoba completing a puja at Wat Doi Suthep

I saw a monk with two giant and not particularly peaceful tattoos at the Wat Umong monastery.

If a Vietnamese monk quits being a monk he is shamed by his family and community and can never return home.

I was going to shave my head completely the night before our meditation retreat, but thought against it lest I be mistaken for a poser monk.

I can’t believe that there are less than two months left in the trip. It seems like just yesterday we were freezing in London.

Finally, another shoutout to my Mom, whose generous gift towards Carrie and my trip helped fund the jungle trek, cooking class and a zip lining trek above the jungles in northern Laos that I will go into next time.

People on the street douse a passing motorcycle to celebrate Songkran

Thai New Year, known locally as Songkran, is celebrated grandly in Bangkok by dousing friends and strangers with water and wiping a mixture of chalk powder and water on people’s faces. Both are meant to be symbols for the substances used by monks to bless people and anyone who goes outside should be prepared to be soaked and covered in chalk.

The main soaking in local neighborhoods comes from groups of people standing on the side of the street. There is usually a giant bucket or garbage pail filled with water that people scoop water out and dump on any passing pedestrian or vehicle. It’s very funny to see the cars and rickshaws (tuk tuks) get doused, but a bit scary when a motorcyclist gets a gallon in the face while driving.

Danger not only lurks from the side of the road, but from other motorists as well. Pickup trucks are weighed down with people taking part in Songkran while tuk tuks, which have no doors and are completely open, offer a prime spot to launch an attack from a moving target. My favorite sight is two tuk tuks matching each other speed-wise as the passengers of both engage in a water gun battle.

Even a group photo degenrates into a water fight at the Chatuchak weekend market during Songkran in Bangkok

While we had a great time watching the tuk tuk fun, we one time made the mistake of getting into one along with a few new friends. As five of us crammed into a vehicle barely big enough for three, we quickly realized we were sitting ducks. The driver was intent on slowing down at ever corner that had people with water and we spent most of the 20 minute ride having buckets of water tossed at us with nowhere to hide. All in good fun, but I had my camera bag unprotected and we were actually en-route to the mall to see a movie with air conditioning to cool off a bit. Those plans changed when we were all soaked.

Once you get out of the vehicle scene, many streets are actually closed off to allow for massive water gun fights. We visited one of them in the Patpong area one evening and the scene reminded me a bit of a much more tame Mardi Gras: minus the flashing. Packed with young drunken Thais and tourists, we watched as everyone doused each other in water and chalk, boozed it up in the streets and had a huge dance party. We were there joining the fun until nearly 2am, and when we left the festivities were still going strong.

Songkran by night in the Patpong area of Bangkok

It honestly doesn’t matter where one goes during Songkran in Bangkok, as people are celebrating everywhere. One night we went to a local bar to see a show best described as a karaoke show with a live band and a dance group dance off. It was like nothing I have ever seen before and made all the more fun by the random 50 year old American whose table we joined and later learned it was his birthday. Anyway, the bar turned into a Songkran playground by the end of the night with ever table, and our bodies, covered in water and chalk.

Another day we were just innocently walking around a mall when Songkran found us there. Right in the middle of the stalls that lined the walkways people were throwing water on each other…and on their shops. Many had tarps over their merchandise and all had signs that said, “no water please,” which was clearly there for show only. All in all, we spent much of our time in Bangkok wet.

For more on Songkran, check out Wikipedia

Bangkok in Songkran A family celebrating by dousing traffic and me outside the overstay in Pinklao

Street music in Patpong, Bangkok, during Songkran

Songkran in Bangkok A giant party on the streets of Patpong