Hey guys! I just had a pretty cultural experience up in the hills of northern thailand! We started in Chiang Rai, which is a pretty decent sized place way up north of thailand. Near chiang rai there was a small village, which we got to stay at the local teachers house for the night before trekking. He had a beautiful home and family. They cooked us some beautiful food and had fresh passion fruit... and if you wanted, worms that came from the cocunut trees... i didnt partake. but the fruit was awesome. His school kids played music for us with the most amazing instruments and tried to teach us some thai after.
The next morning we hopped in the back of a farm truck to our starting point on the trail. From there we hiked up up up... through the jungle and had lunch at a beautiful waterfall. Once the sweltering hike of only 10 km ended... we came to our beautiful village hut overlooking one of the best sights ive seen in a while. From there we took a look around the village and had a nice homemade dinner all together on our deck. That night, to support the local women who have taken massage courses to learn a little bit of extra income... i got my first thai massage and it was amazing... a whole 5 dollars for an hour... !
The next day was soooo much better once we had a pretty easy 10 km hike to the next village of akha where we stayed directly with the locals, you can see on my facebook all the kids everywhere!! they loved us and we loved hauling them around on our backs. This village wass so unique.. u could see Burma in the furthest mountains and beautiful flowers and mud and straw huts. Again we had a great dinner then got to spend all our free time monkeying around with the beautiful akha children. Whats really unique about the akha is that they have the most beautiful costumes in thailand... there traditional dress is the most extravagant! absolutely beautiful, it taked them one whole yr to make ONE! imagine.. and i dont even know how to hem my own pants.
We stayed in a really basic hut with chickens and the sound of pigs. The pigs and the main rooster had me up at 6! after we hiked allllllll the way down today (the third day) we came to chiang rai which we will stay the next two days. Its pretty hard here because now that we are so north no one really speaks english and all the signs here are in Thai or Lanna... it took me an hour and half to find this internet cafe.. and no.. i did not find a laundry place... so my group is gonna have to deal with three days of elbow greese. IT IS SO HOT HERE. the luxury of being up in the mountains is we got our first breezes ever! and cool nights... now back on the ground.. its gotta be 30 degrees.
I think tonight we all wanted to finally go get some cool ones and see a "ladyboy" show (and there are lots of ladyboys in thailand)... these are meant to be fun.. i dont want my grandparents thinking we're going to see a tranny strip show hahaha. this isnt the case, all in good fun but i think i am way to tired... and a little frustrated with having to figure out chiang rai with a really crappy map! I can just imagine what chinas going to be like.. grrrrr!
Well i love and miss you all! ill try calling some of you this weekend.
Grama, grampa, mom, cousins, steve and family, miss you and love you all! will talk soon! this weekend ill be heading to southern thailand, which is a whole new ball game.. so ill let you know as im on my way!
love yasss!
No comments:
Post a Comment