29/11/09 Mr Ton Tour Day One

We woke up at 5am as we had to check out at 6 to meet Mr Ton. When we woke up a nearby nightclub we could hear when we went to bed was still banging out dance tunes!! Phil thought it was the Monks being called to pray. The reception was closed and the place in darkness so we couldn't get our clothes back. Phil had no clothes he wanted to wear on a trek so we waited until 6.45 when reception opened and the clothes were ready thankfully. Amazingly we managed to be ready for 7am but hadn't had breakfast with the others. We all loaded into the back of a truck and set off to drive half an hour to a small market area to buy some gifts for the villagers we would be staying with. We went to find some breakfast in the 7/11 shop but they only really had hot dogs so we had to order two of them. They arrived in plastic bags , just sliced sausage,,,no bun!!! We bought a small loaf and improvised but it was pretty bad. We bought some cold medication for the families as it is winter and some toys and balloons for any children there. After our shopping where the Italian Tiz seemed to buy the whole shop we drove on until we stopped at a rice whiskey distillery. It has now been legalised as the king of Thailand realised people could make money from it if it was made legal. The King is a bit of a hero here, we have seen his photo in every shop, restaurant and house we've been into. He is a very good king very much working for the people. He has started and supported many agricultural projects helping the opium producers find an alternative means to make money, so improving health and income of the people. Thailand has no Opium now after being the worlds biggest producer. The people really love him like a father figure as he provides moral guidance to the people too, a real role model. He has been king for 62 years and we will be in Bangkok for his 82nd Birthday celebrations on 5th Dec. At the whiskey distillery we tried a sample of the firewater and tried a smoke of a local ladies huge cheeroot. There wasn't any rice whiskey being distilled that day but Mr Ton went through the process anyway. After that quick visit we drove off road up a really bumpy track for about twenty minutes until we stopped at a view point overlooking cultivated areas in the valley below. It was an area which used to be full of poppies for opium production but now is planted with all sorts of other crops and trees under the guidance of the king. We got back into the truck and drove to see the Meo village where Mr Ton showed us round and took inside one of the wooden houses. The different tribes use a variety of designs for their homes and these were built straight onto the soil so had earth floors inside. As we walked through the village we saw many cars and expensive trucks belonging to the villagers so it wasn't too poor there like places in Laos. We called into the vilage shop where lots of the locals were having lunch then carried on driving up to a viewpoint down to the village where we stopped for lunch. We unloaded our stuff from the truck and sat and ate rice, veggies and fresh fruits then Mr Ton got out catapults and a knife for each of us to carry. We all practiced with the catapults trying to hit a ballon tied to a tree about thirty feet away. Some of us hit it but there were lots of misses too. We packed up the lunch stuff and tied our weapons round our waists and then set off to start our trek. Mr Ton had an amazing knowledge of the forest and the uses of the plants and trees around. He showed us a tree with bright yellow pulp that the locals use like paracetamol and it tasted as bitter and nasty as a tablet!! We stopped regularly for him to show us plants, taste fruits, chop some banana leaves "for tomorrows lunch" and generally getting to know the area. He was really knowledgable and it was fascinating to learn from him. We had a chance to swing Tarzan style from a huge vine across a clearing, you can imagine the testosterone levels and with the knives, all very Bear Grylls!!! Whe we got close to our overnight camp later in the day four of us had an elephant ride for the last part of the trek. There were two female elephants and we fed them with "chocolates "made from sugar cane. We got on the back of one while Tiz and Marckus got on the other. We rode for about an hour through some narrow forest trails nearly hitting trees as the elephants squeezed their big bums through narrow gaps. We rode through some rice fields and then on to the camp in time for sunset. The camp called Pa Wee Hair was a small farm with a purpose built hut just for guests and two buildings for the couple who lived there. It was really a stunning spot overlooking the valley below and we watched sunset and Phil took some pictures of water bufallo we'd passed on the elephants. Mr Ton had set up a target and all the lads had a turn at firing his handmade crossbow and arrows. We changed to long clothes for the evening then helped collect firewood with the man of the house. He had such a great face and was always smoking a huge spliff all the time we were there. There was a table and a bench outside as well as long benches by the fire. The man lit a huge fire for us and we all sat round for a while. We were sat chatting at the table and Liz was playing with her hair and thought it felt a bit weird, then she realised she'd been playing with the tail of a rat hanging in a trap behind her head!!!! We all went off to help prepare dinner. Phil was making pork kebabs while the rest of us were chopping veg. We were lit by candles and torches sitting on a wooden platform in the kitchen hut and liz managed to deeply slice her thumb. It was bleeding really badly and after about half an hour of Phil pressing on the skin flap it was still bleeding badly. A local came to see what Liz had done and disappeared into the forest only to return wwith a mouthful of leaves. He spat out the leaves then pressed them onto the cut saying it would help, the bleeding would stop in ten minutes. We were on day one of the three day trek and in the middle of nowhere with no clean water so we were a bit worried it might get infected. Once the local chap had spat out the leaves into the cut we decided not to worry and go with the flow as there was no other option. we hid our horror as he spat it from his "clean" mouth and made sure we looked grateful for the help !! Once Liz was patched up after the bleeding did stop we ate a fantastic meal, Mr Ton was a great cook and made us pork kebabs, mixed rice and noodle dishes, stir fries and curries. We all had loads to eat and then tried some of the rat that had been barbecued. It tasted really good like rotisserie chicken. Then they bought out a bowl of bugs to eat. There were crickets and other smaller grubs which all the boys tucked into. Liz was feeling a little sick after all the pain from her finger so gave them a miss...good excuse. After dinner we cleared up and sat round the fire. A few locals arrived and showed us how to set a rat trap for a hunting trip later in the evening. We all managed to set one of the clever handmade traps made of bamboo which basically lassoos the rats neck. One of the elephant mahouts came along with a home made shotgun and we all made our way with our traps to the nearby forest. We set the traps and then spent about n hour looking into the trees to find some creatures to kill, the locals eat squirrel, flying fox, rats, mice and birds. Finally we heard a loud crack followed by a thud and the mahout had shot a bird. It was a beautiful bird with fantastic coloured feathers which we picked up and took with us back to the camp. We sat round the fire again and Mr Tom tried to identify the bird in his book of local birds. He couldn't find any evidence of the bird and we thought maybe it was a rare bird that we had managed to now make extinct!! Mr Ton plucked out all the feathers to use on his arrows for the crossbow then gave the meat to the family. We had also collected nuts fruits and some crickets to add to the measly haul. We sat round the fire for a short while but then turned in for the night leaving Mr Ton and Tiz playing the guitar and singing.

1/12/09 Mr Ton Trek Day 2

Mr Ton got up really early to see if there were any rats in the traps, but there weren't any. It had been a bright full moon which keeps the animals inside apparently. We all got up about 7 to start the day and there was a huge yellow spider in the "bathroom". We had eggs and fire cooked toast in long bamboo bread holders then set off to trek for the day. Mr Ton had made us lunch wrapped in banana leaves collected the day before so we each had a mystery parcel in our bags. The four Swedish lads rode the elephants for the first hour while the rest of us walked with Mr Ton and the mahout. We stopped by a bamboo forest and Mr Ton and the mahout chopped down some big lengths of bamboo. We carried on fo a while then met up with the elephant trekkers. After feeding the elephants more chocolates they left and we stayed in the clearing to make some things from the bamboo. Mr Ton chopped the bamboo into cups and we all were shown how to make chopsticks and knives from it. We all had a cup to carve ourselves and were all pretty pleased with our results. We trekked on for an hour or so at a better pace until we reached a river side where we stopped to eat lunch. Mr Ton lit a fire and produced a kettle from nowhere to boil us up a brew . we all settled down to open up our leaves and discovered a huge pile of stir fried noodles inside still quite warm too. we ate our lunch with our new hand made chop sticks and drank tea from our cups....how cool. The afternoon walk was mostly uphill with several stops to collect fruit to taste and to shoot berries from a tree with our catapults. We stopped at the highest point to look out at a view of Thialands highest peak, Intanon, which is over 2500m high. At the top plateau Mr Ton showed us a couple of tricks with leaves that he learnt as a child. We all had a go at exploding leaves. We were met by a group of villagers carrying a big bag of clothes and a crash helmet. Mr Ton told us they were hunting for hornet nests as the eggs sell for a bit of money 200 Baht a Kg (4 pounds) which is very good money for them. The men would climb up to the nest and bang it to the floor or shoot a lit arrow to it so it burns but that takes a day for it to burn down. The men tended to use the very dangerous option of climbing up as it was quicker. It was the man climbing up would be attacked by a swarm of angry hornets!!!!! It really humbles you to realise the risks these people take for a few pounds. Mr Ton pointed out a hornet nest to us and it looked really big. We descended into the village where we were spending the night called Por Bo Kee across some rice fields wth the usual braying water bufallo. Mr Ton imitated there sound and they were calling back to him, for such huge creatures they have the most pathetic sound like a high pitched whine. The village was quite small with about twenty stilted wooden houses. When we arrived we were shown to a room with eight matresses, mozzie nets and an electric light with an outside sitting deck and a fire burning. The fab Thai king has another project to install solar panels in the bigger villages to ensure that they have light in order to improve education as the people can read by light. What a great guy!! The solar panels charge up huge lorry batteries which the lights are then connected to. The temperature drops at night here as it is winter but its not any worse than a spring evening in the UK. We all sat and prepared the veggies for dinner except Liz who was banned from using knives. Mr Ton prepared three bamboo tubes stuffed with sticky rice mixed with coconut milk and sesame seeds which he left next to the fire to cook for dessert. Mr Ton went off to make our meal while we all had a few beers and warmed by the fire. We were called into the main house of the family we were staying with to eat and their home was a very large single room in which they ate, cooked and slept. There was a fire in the middle of the room and the family were sat round it while we ate our dinner. Mr Ton surpassed the previous meal with another delicious feast. He made an amazing pumpkin curry, chicken fried rice, mixed veggies, curried chicken all really tasty and so much of it. We were all really full when we left the family to their evening and went back outside to the fire. They had made us a huge bowl of popcorn and we all sat round with beer eating our way through it. The local dogs and cats had smelt it though and all gathered round for a morsel. Phil fed a couple of the dogs who were well behaved but one of the cats kept getting up on the table to help himself. Mr Ton ended up locking him inside our bedroom where he meowed for ages. Mr Ton then grabbed a pile of things to make something. We didn't know what he was making but he had a huge piece of tissue paper which he drew a picture on and got us all to sign our names on. He then glued the bottom of it to a bamboo ring and we realised he was making a huge paper lantern. It was about a meter across and he attached frieworks and a kerosene soaked paper ring to it. We all carried it to the adjacent field (full of sleeping cows) and held on to it while Mr Ton lit it . The lantern filled with the hot air and just before we let it go Mr Ton lit the firecrackers. The lantern shot up and the fireworks banged away. All the villagers came out of their huts to see the fireworks which was lovely. It was a really lovely moment to see our lantern float upwards inot the stars. We could see it for about ten minutes until it disappeared, we felt a bit teary as it was an unexpected suprise. After the lantern had gone we returned to the fire and Mr Ton opened up the sticky rice tubes. We were all stuffed from the huge meal but it tasted really delicious, very soft and cocnutty...yummy..between us we only managed to eat one tube. The other villagers ate the rest as it is a real treat for them. Mr Ton and Anders played guitar and sang a few tunes and after a very chilled evening we headed off to bed.

2/12/09 Mr Ton Trek Day three

We woke up early to see and help the local women crushing the rice. The rice crushing was all done with pedal driven wooden machines. all the lads had a go and were all pretty exhausted after only about ten minutes. The women do this for about one hour every morning!! Mr Ton served up boiled eggs and toast and we took a few photos of the village before getting ready to go. We all had gifts for the villagers so started handing out some toys, socks, lighters and medicine. All the local children turned up once they realised toys were being handed out and we had a nice time playing with them. Liz gave out balloons and Phil played with one of the local boys showing him how to use a propeller firing toy. We set off out of the village for a two hour walk through mostly forest tracks down some really steep and slippy paths where at least three people slipped over. We arrived in a Karen village called Mae Na Jon where Mr ton showed us a bubble blowing plant before we stopped to change for the rafting part of our trip. We were picked up in the truck to drive to the banks of the Mae Charm river. We picked up a few locals who were driving the rafts and stopped by the river where there were two bamboo rafts waiting. We split into two teams, Swedes versus the rest of the world and stood on top of the rafts. The river was pretty shallow and the men lashed more bamboo to the rafts to keep us afloat but we were stood ankle deep in water on the rafts anyway. We were each given a long pole to punt with and set off down the river. There were a few small rapids we went through without incident then all hell broke lose. The men driving the rafts were mischievious and started pushing each others rafts off course. the Swedish guys went careering into e tre which knocked one of them in, then we were laughiong so much that we hit one two and Marckus fell off the back. at the same time Phils pole got stuck under our raft and when Tiz retrieved it he managed to crack it into Phils head!! The next half an hour was spent trying to tip each other over and steer off course, it was hilarious watching the Swedish lads desperately trying to stay in the lead then go straight into trees and the bank. One of the drivers pointed out a huge snake on the bank of the river which we all got a close look at. We came up to a really low bridge and the Swedish lads out in front were told to jump onto the bridge then jump back onto the raft as it passed underneath. We all lay down flat on our raft and over took them as we passed underneath!!! It was so funny seeing the look of shock on the Swedish lads faces as we took the lead but it didn't last as they got organised and went past us again. We pulled into a stop a bit further along after a great couple of hours. We were all laughing through lunch about all the fun we'd had. Ater lunch we drove for about an hour to Chiang Mai's biggest waterfall called Namtok Mae Pan. There was a 15 minute walk to it when you could hear it but couldn't see it then ther was an opening and a huge cascade into a pool below. All the boys went for a dip in the freezing water but Liz sensibly gave it a miss. The water cascaded down several levels and was quite impressive to watch. We stayed for about 40 minutes then went to meet Mr Ton back at the truck. We had a 2hr drive back to Chiang Mai which started off really cold as we were at 2000meters but really warmed up by the time we reached the town again. When we got back to the hotel we arranged a day trip with Mr Ton to see some of the areas attractions including a tiger park where you can get photos taken with the tigers!!! We showered and changed, went to book a flight to Bangkok( to save us from another hellishly long bus journey) then went for dinner in a resturant with a really good singer playing guitar. While we were there we realised Kristen, the Canadian girl we met on the bus in Vietnam was there with her family. We got chatting and joined them for a few drinks. Kristens dad paid for our whole evenings drinks and meal which was really good of him especially as we'd only known Kristen for a few hours and him even less but they were really nice people. After quite a few drinks and Sambucas courtesy of Dad we went off to bed.