Jungle Trek
By Jon Stark
I learnt several important new things on the 3-day, 2-night jungle trek out of Chiang Mai, Thailand. I am not sure whether I will ever be able to put this new knowledge into practice, but you never know!
Jenny and I both liked the look of the tour in the brochure. It just seemed to tick all the boxes. We booked it through the travel desk at the hotel we were staying at. I think the female consultant was pleased to have us as customers because she seemed to spend a huge number of hours sitting on her bottom waiting for people like us to support her. As do many ‘shop’ operators across Thailand! We had been advised by other travellers not to pay the price advertised on the brochures, but to always ask for discount.
When we looked at the price on the brochure, we couldn’t see where any fat could be trimmed from the price. In fact we couldn’t see how the company could possibly make any profit at all. Whereas many tours around the world seem overpriced, this one seemed to be underpriced. The 3-day, 2-night tour included the following: full-time guide, driver (3 hours there and back), visit to a local market, 7 meals, tea and coffee, 2 night’s accommodation (one night in a tribal village, the second in a jungle hut), two and a half days trekking, a visit to a Butterfly Farm/Orchid Farm, a visit to two waterfalls/water-holes for relaxing swims, full commentary from breakfast to bed-time,one hour elephant ride, one hour white water rafting, bamboo rafting and avisit to the village of the Karen ‘long neck’ tribe. Deducting our 100 baht ($3) negotiated discount, it came to the princely sum of 1700 baht (about $50) each!
The other members of our group were four Estonian men, all travelling together, aged from 28 to around 50. They were on a boys’ adventure trip with everything they needed packed in their backpacks. There was Marko, a stocky hotel owner, Kalle, a laconicsmall business owner, Tanel, a strapping welder/ex-soldier and Asko, a portly, laid-back builder. Jenny and I, two Aussies, travelled light, having left our heavy suitcases with all the unnecessary stuff at the hotel.
Our tour guide, One, was a 28 year old Thai guy without an ounce of fat, who just loved being out in the bush. He had given up his desk job, and it seems, his wife, to be in the wild doing what he loved best: trekking and supervising groups of tourists. His English was very good and he was always keen to clarify the meanings of words, or learn new ones. He did carry on just a little at times however. Someone would ask him a question and he would always elaborate for quite some time. He was a little difficult to understand, on occasions, but it must have been doubly difficult for the Estonians, who spoke solid conversational English but didn’t have huge vocabularies. They sometimes sought clarification from me, in English, for what One had just said, in English. Or simply soaked up the splendour of the environment we passed through and let it wash over them.
The four Estonian guys proved to be excellent company. We had great conversations over the three days, often making comparisons between our two countries. They all had excellent senses of humour and we had many laughs along the way. Our guide One was the source of a lot of our laughter, not always intentionally. We all believe in appreciating cultural difference but some of One’s bush remedies made us all laugh! One mentioned several remedies over the course of our trek. If you were to get bitten by a scorpion, you should urinate on the bite. If it bit you on the bum, you would need assistance! If a poisonous snake were to bite you, you must cut the wound with a knife, suck out the poison and then apply a tight bandage. To avoid leeches you should moisten tobacco and then rub it on your feet and lower legs. But the classic, which had us all in fits, was the cure for a centipede bite. You needed to burn a woman’s ‘secret hair’ (yes, he meant pubic hair) and then rub the ash on the wound. All of a sudden Jenny, as the only female in the group, was being offered higher and higher sums of money for her secret hair, just in case! Thankfully, nobody suffered from any bites on the trip. Although I am sure that smothering ourselves in wet tobacco and secret hair ash before we set out each day must have helped!
After some relatively light trekking to start Day 1, our first treat was an elephant ride. Two riders mounted each elephant for a gentle amble through scenic terrain on dirt roads. Trying to stay on board while taking photos and feeding the demanding elephants with bananas, was quite challenging! The elephants weren’t particularly enthusiastic. The trunks continually swung backwardsseeking more bananas. If they weren’t forthcoming we would receive a light blast of wet air from the elephant’s trunk. We were on the back of the oldest, biggest elephant and she certainly knew the ropes. She wasn’t in the business of offering any ‘extras’ without rewards. Hermahut walked patiently alongside, swearing at her in Thai and giving her an occasional prod with his iron bar. We reasoned we would need to ration our bag of bananas along the way, fearing we may be stranded if we let ourselves run out. At one stage the elephant backed up to the edge of the roadway, threatening to topple us off down the hill. Jenny was just a little apprehensive at this point but I reasoned that an old experienced elephant would certainly not want to inconvenience itself by rolling down a hill, with or without tourists on board! Whenall the elephants drew near the end of the trip, they quickened their pace a little. All the while we lurched back and forth with the movement, never particularly comfortable but enjoying the sensations. I must say one hour was plenty though.
After lunch at a local restaurant we were given the option of a ‘difficult’ trek or a ‘medium.’ After much debate we chose the medium. All I can say is thank god we did! Because the medium was pretty damn tough! The afternoon sun was intense and there was no escape from it. Thankfully Jenny and I wore shorts. The Estonians, with heavier packs, all wore long pants, and the heaviest of the four, Asko, was all in black! The distance we travelled would have been fine on flat terrain, in normal weather. But we just seemed to go up and up and up and the temperature seemed to be doing likewise. It was clearly in the high thirties. Although not particularly humid, we were bathed in sweat and our water supplies disappeared quickly. Thankfully, before we collapsed, we arrived at a waterfall with a nice deep water-hole and were able to recover!I was carrying Jenny’s pack as well as mine by this stage and the man in black was really suffering!
The water was a welcome relief and everybody was able to reduce their core body temperature before we set off again. The break raised our spirits and we were certain that there wouldn’t be far to go. Our guide One had told us that it was a two hour trek so when our watches were way past the two hour mark we were hopeful that the finish line was in sight. It wasn’t. The key words were the same: hot and up! Jenny was close to exhaustion by this stage and Asko was past that point. He was almost delusional, lagging way behind and muttering his best English phrases for situations like these, no doubt gleaned from Hollywood movies:
“Unbelievable!”
“This isn’t funny any more!”
“WTF!?”
Luckily, a woman on a motor-bike arrived on cue. Poor old Asko was the most in need of a ride, but one look at his 120 kg frame was enough to cross him off the list! Jenny got the ride! It added 100 baht ($3) to the cost of the tour but it was worth every bit of it. Jenny told us later, looking fresh(ish) at the final destination, that even the ride was tough! Asko was dry-reaching as we approached the summit and we were certainly all glad to reach our final destination, a quaint, hill tribe village!
At the village we soon sampled the contents of a rather large Esky. We were all more than happy to pay double city pricesfor our drinks. We were inundated by the local women, wanting to sell us their wares or a massage. As nobody else took up the offer, I was treated to two women for the price of one! I don’t think they had completed any training courses, but they did a fine job. A stunning sunset over the mountains was followed by a nice dinner of Thai green chicken curry and fruit. Then we were treated to a performance of singing by the local children. Their last song went on for so long that we joked that we needed to pay them to stop. The girls kept the boys in line and the older children kept the younger ones under control. They finished with a nice ritual of shaking our hands after we had given them their tips (Don’t sing so loudly! Sing in harmony!) We spent the rest of the evening reliving the day over cold beers, gathering around a small fire and hearing words of wisdom from our guide One. One classic was his story about seeing God twice. When his lengthy story didn’t make any sense, we finally realised he meant ‘ghost,’ not God. No wonder the Estonians had trouble understanding him!
Day two dawned, a touch too early for our liking! The local roosters started up at some ungodly hour and then tried to outdo each other with their cock-a-doodle-do’s right through until breakfast. Thankfully the local humans left us in peace: no singing, no sales, no massages. The Thai-style scrambled eggs, toast, jam and coffee went down a treat.
Our guide One was unsure about how to rate the level of difficulty of the day’s trekking. All of his time estimates seemed to be quite wrong and his ratings: easy, medium, difficult, even more so. I guess after doing back to back treks over many months, it was all a bit of a doddle for One! With aching muscles from the previous day, it wasn’t such a walk in the park for the rest of us! Thankfully, the thick jungle that we passed through on Day 2 gave us some relief from the fierce Thai sun. While the temperature was again high, we didn’t have the direct rays of the previous day.
Some of the scenery was quite breath-taking. Massive trees stretching towards the sun, thick bamboo and a variety of lush vegetation surrounded us. Although the trekking was again quite tough, we all found it more pleasurable than the previous day. Our trek was also broken with stops at two stunning waterfalls, at which we were quick to whip off our drenched shirts and soak in the refreshing water while they dried. We met up with a couple of other groups of trekkers there and it was fun to exchange information. One of the group’s members had done nothing but trekking to that point and they were looking forward to an elephant ride or one of the other diversions.
Our lunch stop, near one of the water-holes, was very welcome. Nothing tastes better than food and drink you have earned with your efforts. Generally I hate Coke, but I could think of nothing better to wash down my Thai-style chicken noodles and replace some electrolytes, than a can of Dr Pemberton’s ubiquitous beverage. A local beer crossed my mind but I thought better of it. After lunch it was ‘same same,’ as they say throughout Asia. Jenny offloaded her pack to me again, but she was travelling much better than the previous day, even though her legs sometimes had that jelly-like sensation.
We reached our final destination, a jungle camp, in the late afternoon. Food and drinks again awaited us, but this time there were no salespeople, masseurs or singers. We were in a wonderful location, above the river, surrounded by jungle. We had thatch-roofed shelters, sleeping huts with covered bamboo floors and primitive yet quaint bathroom facilities. The drinks slid down very well and we enjoyed playing cards and chatting as we waited for another great meal to be served up to us. Later we sat around a camp-fire and continued our discussions into the late hours. Our guide One was again the source of much amusement with his bush remedies and the five laws of Buddhism. During the evening he appeared to have broken every one of them!
Tired from our efforts, we all enjoyed a great sleep. With no roosters to wake us, we all lay in late until the overnight chill had disappeared. After the intense heat of the day, I was surprised that I needed a second blanket during the night.
Eggs, toast, jam and coffee welcomed us to Day 3. Thankfully, there was very little walking. It was all flat or down, so it didn’t pose too many problems. Jenny’s quad muscles were screaming and the tread on her sports shoes was ineffective, so she had to tense those muscles when going down and even slid down on her bottom in a few places to avoid slipping. She was in pain.
At the white water rafting site, the sign said nobody over 55 could participate, which ruled out Jenny and me. It also said no overweight people, which may have also ruled out Asko. But we did it anyway! And it was great. All six of us shared a raft, with a Thai local in the back to instruct and synchronise us. There were some excellent rapids. We all managed to stay in the boat and had some great water fights with some of the trekkers from the other groups. Our group stopped halfway for a ‘surprise.’ After pulling our raft from the water and climbing a hill, we were led to a female elephant that was closely guarding her baby: a five day old male elephant. Gorgeous! We couldn’t believe our luck. It was still gaining confidence in its legs and at times they looked as jelly-like as ours had been at various stages.
Where the water slowed, we changed our white-water vessels for bamboo rafts. This was a huge contrast in pace. It was clear our raft was somewhat overloaded and we joked it was a submarine. A couple of the Estonians actually got out and pushed to speed us up a little as we cruised into our lunch spot. Our final lunch of the trip was the national dish, pad thai. We tipped our guide One and then we were transported to our final stop, the Karen ‘long neck’ village. There we saw quite a few of the tribeswomen going about their daily tasks, weaving, caring for children and offering their crafts for sale. The females of the tribe start wearing the neck rings from a very young age. The older women looked distinctly uncomfortable, with numerous gold rings circling their necks, an unfortunate side effect of looking ‘beautiful.’
From the village, we were returned to our hotels. We said our final farewells to One and the Estonians. After three days in the jungle, acting likewarriors and free of many of the modern trappings of life, we were back to reality. We promised to keep in touch via Facebook or email.
The 3-day, 2-night Jungle Trek is widely advertised In Chiang Mai and surrounding towns. Do not book it from your home country or you will probably pay a huge premium! If you can be bothered, you can probably negotiate a dollar or two off the price locally.