I went and had many adventures but I don’t feel like writing about them because this way they can hold a special place in my memory…except for two. First, about an amazing three day Eco-trek through the mountains of Thailand, and second, about how I accidentally got fake hair. Intrigued?
(these are some of my traveling peeps from San Diego with whom i met up with)
So my most memorable time in Thailand started out in Chiang Mai, a small northern city in Thailand where we stayed at the most unique little hostel for the most amazing prices. For a private room for one night, I paid less than three dollar. Scandalous it was. So starting from Chiang Mei, my friend Melissa from San Diego and I embarked upon the most vivid tour I have ever been on.
Starting Here:
We began at the long neck village, which is somewhat of an enigma.
Wait, is enigma the right word? Well, I will tell you what it was like and you can help me out with the right word.
The history behind the villagers is that this small land holds refugees from Burma and Myanmar, however, without any rights as Thai citizens. They are essentially allowed to live freely and self-sufficiently as long as they do not leave their allotted plot of land, which is perhaps one side of a hill, nothing more. Their village is set up with about ten or so huts lined up along the main road leading to a church at the top. That is all. The tradition in this town is that once the girls hit a certain age, she is required to put on a copper ring around her neck, adding a ring each year, gradually stretching out their necks. The girls can normally get around 10 heavy rings wrapped around their necks, hence the name the Long Neck Village.
What tourists get to do is walk up the main dirt path, observing the villagers doing “daily activities” like weaving, chopping wood, and molding copper wires. The odd part is that it feels kind of like a show put on for outsiders, especially since they don’t speak Thai or English and you cannot talk to anyone, or ask them about their lives.
You just look, buy a scarf or two, smile, and take a picture. It must be strange to grow up doing your daily activity for people to come and observe and take pictures of you all the time- in your home, walking, doing work. I had so many mixed feelings, it feels even strange to describe. Enigma right?
Then came the elephants, which was scary and magical and quite hilarious. I sat on the baby elephant’s head and thank the good Lord I had bought elephant pants because their little heads are course and hairy and not fluffy like one might imagine.
So with no guide, and only the mama elephant to follow, I held on for dear life, hoping to not fall off. We trekked down hills, stopped by a river for a quick drink and splash around, went through a jungle where all the elephants stopped to scratch their butts on the same rock, and then we stopped for a quick lunch of bamboo, allowing the elephants to fight with the thick branches of the bamboo shoots.
It was quite the ride on these giant elephants whose saddles were secured down by a long hose wrapped around their tail. Odd, this country. Odd, this people. Just odd.
We started our real trek when we met our tour guide, this little man who looked like the weasely animal in Madagascar who sang “I like to move it move it.” Oh yeah, and he insisted we call him Johnny Walker.
So this little old man, Johnny, wearing sandals, army shorts, a tank, and a shirt wrapped around his head, led us through the vast and intricate jungles and mountains that Thailand conceals.
We began our trek going uphill for five hours, tough business, and then we finally reached this oasis of a little village resting on top of a hill, overlooking nothing but forest and sky.
Up there, I ran across some crazy little kids, running around sharing sandals, holding handmade sling shots, and caked with dirt and mud all over. With no adults watching over them, they had created their own hierarchy, with the boys playing certain roles as the pestering troublemakers and the girls as the collectors, and dreamers.
Sitting on a stump, letting the girls dress me up with petals of flowers and dirty water, I looked in their eyes and saw full concentration, full attention to their task, as if nothing else in the world mattered then putting “blush” on this stranger with a flower and sprinkles of water.
And again I thought, how strange it must be, to grow up with strange white people coming by all the time, playing with them, taking pictures, and then leaving the next morning, always leaving. It broke my heart that they allowed me into their little world, knowing that I would leave them so soon. But each encounter with a person, to me, is a something special, something that becomes a part of me, and I appreciate that I could be a part of their little circle for even that short of a time.
We sat outside our hut in a circle on the floor under the proud stars, and ate our dinner together, as a group, as a family. It was something else.
Then we built a bonfire in the hut, played spoons, chatted, and clapped for a group of the village kids who came to sing for us.
We went to sleep in our bamboo hut with pigs and chickens snorting and clucking around us. We woke up the next day, started hiking again and stopped this time at a waterfall where we automatically stripped down and jumped into the freezing water. Letting our muscles and minds relax in the cold water and under the hot sun, we realized that this trip, this experience, was something special, something different.
We stopped again at a two-hut village. One hut was for us to sleep in, another for the two women who lived there and our guide. We took turns taking cold showers in a little stand outside (which was not built very tightly and didn’t conceal much to the outside world). But it didn’t matter that the water was cold, that there was no privacy, no mirrors, no electricity, it really didn’t, for when we were immersed in such a pure atmosphere, certain things just ceased to matter.
At night we sat around our bonfire, silent for a while, in a trance from the fire, from the exhaustion, from the purity of the night and the stars in the sky. I talked to a boy from Korea for a long time, asking him about his travels, his country, what it is like to travel alone, to be Korean. I talked to the two Australian girls who were so funny and real and unconventional. I talked to Johnny Walker who in turn showed me a few magic tricks that I have already forgotten.
The next day was the last of our adventure. We woke up to hike again. Through the forest trees, rivers and rocks we hiked, stopped by a waterfall where only an older couple lived, widdling cups from bamboo, and watching over the falls. We continued to our “white water rafting” which seemed more like drifting down the calm river, but we didn’t mind, we sang and tried talking to our guide who had a lisp and talked like the brother in 50 First Dates.
When we got to the end of the “rapids”, we saw the long bamboo rafts we were to finish the tour with. “Sit two and two” he said, and just as I was beginning to relax and sit down as we drifted down, he looks at me and says,
“no, you, go to the front and stand up.”
Come again? But feeling ashamed for being singled out, I stood up at the front of the raft like he asked, trying really hard to balance on the swaying unevenly tied bamboo sticks. He came up to me, gave me a long pole and said,
“Ok, guide everyone down the river and I will meet you at the end.”
Come again? Doubting my bamboo rafting skills and unsure of what to do with a long stick and seven people on this oddly long raft, I miraculously steered everyone down the river, coming close to hitting a few rocks and going backwards a few times.
With my natural bambooing abilities (taking a bow), I brought everyone safely to shore, a bit sweaty, shaky, and full of adrenaline while everyone looked well relaxed and sleepy. Eating our last meal together of Pad Thai, we became seriously sad to part with our experience and with the people we had allowed into our personal world for those three days. Alas, we parted ways and said our goodbyes and now I can tell you my second story.
The one where I accidentally got fake hair:
It’s not really that big of a deal.
It could really happen to anyone, really. When you are in a foreign country, especially Asia, you can easily walk into a hair salon, ask to get cool dread-looking braids (which I had seen on this cool Korean girl named Annie on our hike), show them with hand motions what you want, sit down, watch Borat, and 3 hours later look in the mirror to find that you suddenly have hair down to your stomach and no braids.
See, no big deal. But the real problem was coming back and having to explain to people why I suddenly had really long hair, how it is perfectly natural to accidentally get fake hair. Go ahead and judge me, but next time you are in Asia and go to a salon for a haircut and walk out with extra long hair or a shaved head, I will look at you, smirk, and say, “Ha!”
I kind of like it now I do say, though I must confess that I do have one little, itty bitty problem: my hair naturally gets really curly when it is wet or humid out…and the fake hair gets very straight.
Taiwan is VERY humid.
But mullets are in these days so once again I say that it could happen to anyone.
Running on its own resources, the place exudes a healthy lifestyle and discipline.
