Beautiful Pai
We woke up, packed our bags for trekking, had breakfast and then loaded into the truck with five other people coming on the trek with us. We drove for about an hour, out of Chiang Mai, to Pai. We arrived at the Elephant camp, where Chris managed to get a back massage off a baby elephant who used his foot! Then we had about an hour ride on the elephants and we both got to be Mahouts (person who controls the elephant and sits on his head!). Then we drove 10 mins down the road for some lunch before starting our 3 hour walk with a waterfall stop in between. First day was really hilly and was hard work but it was worth it in the end. Eddy our guide, explained everything we saw, he showed us different plants and their uses, buffalos and rice fields. We stayed in a little hill tribe village of about 15 families, where the shower was a bamboo pipe running cold water! The hill tribe is called the Karen tribe, with a population around 6,000 who live spread across the mountains. They speak their own language, completely different from Thai. The women wear traditional dress every day - those who are not married wear white and those who are wear patterned dresses. Women get married at 15 or 16 and each family put a pig under their house for every daughter they have. Then, when the daughter gets married, they kill the pig and have a big celebration.
We sat down at the table with everyone to have a few drinks before dinner and Chris decided to help skin the pig which we were going to have later on that evening over the fire. Dinner was fab- green curry and vegetables with rice. After dinner we played lots of drinking games and sung along to Tuk Tuk playing the guitar and absolutely ruined our guides! Then we ate the pork which the local men carved for us, and stayed up late playing more games before going to sleep in our pretty little hut!
The second day of our trek we woke up, had breakfast and started walking. We stopped for lunch at another waterfall and then walked a bit more before arriving at another Karen village, but this time of only 2 families. We played with the children and played card games with the others. Dinner was amazing- the nicest meal so far, pumpkin with egg and potato and chicken curry with rice! Then we had an early night. again in a pretty little hut!
On the last day of trekking we woke up, ate and walked for half an hour before stopping at the most amazing waterfall and swimming for a while. Then we headed down the valley back to Pai, where we had lunch and then we took bamboo rafts down the river for an hour and Chris had to paddle! We arrived at the bottom of the valley and then got driven back to Chiang Mai for dinner time. We decided to meet up with our group again for one last dinner, before going our different ways. Tomorrow we are doing a cooking course so we are looking forward to that! Plus we get to eat everything we make!xxx
Author : Chris and Suzie
Article source :http://realtravel.com/pai-journals-j1813286.htmlÂ
