After a short sontawng ride to the Kok River, we boarded the long tail boat for an hour up the river before starting our trek after having lunch at the Karen community that also featured a hot spring that we would enjoy following our trek. Joelle and Jacque from France were first to get in our long tail while Mo, our guide, with the hat looked on.
There were only four of us on this trek and one, Michael, also from the USA, was just trekking for the day. He showed me pictures of the Singha-sponsored hot air balloon festival that he had attended so I decided to stay through Sunday in Chiang Rai to see it for myself.
Michael had just finished up his Electrical Engineering Ph.D. at Virginia Tech while working in the Washington, D.C. area he had planned to relocate to the San Francisco Bay Area. I told him some of our experiences there living in San Francisco and Mill Valley many years ago.
The other two tourists that would do the overnight trek with me were Joelle and Jacques from France. Our guide was Mo who was from the Lisu Hilltribe community where we spent the night.
As we arrived at the Karen village where we would have lunch we saw these elephants taking their passengers into the Kok River.
Even though our trail was mostly in the shade we all worked up quite a sweat, soaking our shirts, while navigating this poorly maintained trail that was steep and sluffed off. I learned later that this trail up from the Karen community hot springs to the Lisu village where we stayed overnight was now just a tourist trail since the locals used the road and traveled by cars and motorcycles.
Lots of pineapple orchards
Sacred water spot
When we arrived in our first Hilltribe village, these Lisu village homes were all built with concrete blocks and metal or composite roofs. The only grass roofs, with bamboo walls and floors on stilts, were our tourist sleeping quarters, bathrooms, kitchen, and gathering area.
None of the locals wore any of their ethnic clothing and this village had gotten electricity just three years ago and had a paved road that had just delivered more concrete blocks for a barn raising nearby.
The local kids enjoyed the parade videos on my mini iPad and gave me some of the fruit from the overhanging tree. It was juicy but very bitter. The kids got a kick from my reaction to tasting the fruit and kept offering me more.
The dinner was delicious with a curry-flavored broth full of vegetables, fried chicken, and some hard-boiled eggs with deep-fried shallots. We were also offered some of their locally produced moonshine sometimes called rocket fuel.
After a comfortable sleep, as I piled on more blankets the colder it got, we got a breakfast of coffee, scrambled eggs, toast, and fruit.
We then proceeded down another very steep trail—I can’t imagine hiking down this when it rains—to the Ban Ho Chinese village. This village was in the center of hills of tea—mostly oolong—along with a tea factory.
After hiking through the tea plantations we again entered the bamboo forest on our way to the Huey Keaw Waterfall.
There we were met by Mo’s boss and family—Chai, Jun, and Poomen—who would help Mo make us the bamboo lunch.
We next came to an Akha village where Chai bought some fire ant larvae as a part of our lunch. Chai said that the villagers gathered the ant larvae from the ant nests high in the trees.
Along the way to our lunch spot, Mo stopped to cut up bamboo pieces that would be used to cook our food over a fire.
Poomen enjoyed looking at the videos I had of the parade and elsewhere while waiting for lunch. He then got out his toy sword and played with it along with his Mom.
Once all of the bamboo-filled canisters were cooked, they split open the food and we had vegetables, rice noodles in broth, chicken, scrambled eggs, and fire ant larvae. The flavorings were great in all of the food. It turned out that June had interned as a chef while living in Missouri for two years.
The fire ant larvae popped in my mouth when chewed which reminded me of caviar except it had a coriander and lemongrass flavor instead of a salty flavor.
Fortunately the trail we continued on was wide and smooth as we walked through high grass fields and pineapple orchards while walking through the Lahu village and came to a paved road.
Chai, June, and Poomen had taken a different route than us and rejoined us in their big black 4-door pickup truck after we had just walked a few minutes. It was a welcomed ride back to the Karen village where we began our trek.
From there we soaked for about 1/2 hour in 102-degree hot springs before returning to the restaurant where Mo gave us a bamboo cup in which he had engraved our names.
We returned to the city just as it was beginning to get dark.
After checking back into the Jomson Guesthouse, I went next door to have an hour's massage and then for a dinner of cashew nut chicken.
I then went to my room for a welcomed shower and washed out my dirty clothes while doing so.
I have recently uploaded all of my travel videos to YouTube now that they allow longer uploads and you may want to see my travel adventures there. That link is
https://www.youtube.com/c/huntforgold.
If you do go there, please subscribe to my video channel since it will help me eventually get some income there and help with my future travels. Fewer people are using DVDs so I am transitioning to streaming my travels on my YouTube channel.
Tomorrow I will attend the Singha Ballon Festival that Michael told me about.
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