Into the Wild

Bathed in a bucket? Check. Slept in a hill tribe village where chickens outnumber humans? Yep. Hiked the jungle-laden mountains of Nan in both rain and hot sun? Indeed.

This past weekend, taking advantage of the holiday, the ajaans and I set out for a 3-day, 2-night trekking trip organized by a small agency in Nan called Fhu Travel. 72 hours up in the mountains turned out to be a pretty epic adventure, and by far the coolest thing I've experienced since arriving in Thailand. (And who knew? All just outside the city limits of our home-sweet-home). I feel like the best way to begin telling the weekend's tale is to give you the low-down on the characters who made it so memorable. 

Meet...

Mr. Fhu: a short squat Cambodian man who wears Hawaiian shirts (unbuttoned at the top), heavy silver chain necklaces and yellow-tinted glasses. He's been running Fhu Travel for over 20 years with his wife, Mrs. Fhu. Will give free bananas to anyone who visits his shop. 

Mrs. Fhu: If I could have an Asian grandmother, I would want it to be her. Drives a pickup truck. Runs a tight ship at Fhu Travel, giving orders to all of her various male employees in her brisk stern voice. She's friends with Aj. Prakop, so we know she's legit.  

Nong: our Thai trekking guide for days 1 and 2. Loves to use his limited English to crack jokes about bar-b-queing various animals (cat, dog, tarantula). Nong has a permanent grin on his face and interacts with people - assorted rice farmers we came across, old Hmong ladies, little kids fishing on the side of the road - in a way that makes you think he's known them all his life. Nong is only 30 years old, but already has a pretty cool life history behind him: he was a monk for 12 years (from high school on he was educated at the temple), then worked as a school teacher, and apparently at some point became a certified Pocahuntas. Did you know you can turn a particular plant stem into a bubble wand, and blow bubbles made out of the plant's own sap? Ever made a spider puppet from a type of grassy weed? Fashion a toy gun and stick horse from a banana tree stem? Make sling shot darts out of bamboo leaves? Me either.

Cho: our Hmong trekking guide for day 3. Cho is 65 years old but looks no older than 40 (his secret: "I do something happy every day"). Served in the Lao army during the Vietnam War before returning to Thailand - which may sound like hardened and tough credentials, but this man has the cool demeanor of the iridescent beetle he carried around on his hat brim for most of our Sunday trek. Will talk your ear off if you let him, even though he says he's only studied English for all of 6 months (he also speaks Thai, Lao, French, and of course, Hmong). Cho was always eager to compare his understanding of the world with ours (..."The women are always fighting the men for their boyfriend. You have like that? In America? Maybe sometimes like that."). His father was a shaman, a spritual healer, in his village -- the most prestigious position one can hold in a Hmong tribe -- but Cho claims doesn't have the powers his father had. Refers to his endearing potbelly as "my baby" ("No one wants this last wafer?... I'll feed it for my baby. What a crazy baby.") 

Day Nueng

Friday morning, we set out by foot for Fhu Travel, where we were greeted (with bananas) by Mr. and Mrs. Fhu. Mrs. Fhu excitedly asked if we were excited, before making a last-minute trip to the market to ensure we had enough "sa-pa-rot" (pineapple) for the weekend - though from the looks of her prepared bags of food, we already had plenty. We were introduced to Nong and our driver, and a few moments later were ushered into the back of the Fhu-Mobile and hit the road. 

Our destination - the mountainous hill tribe region of Nan - is only about 1 hour outside Nan city. Along the drive, however, Nong made several stops. He showed us a pottery "studio" where traditional clay stoves are made and exported to Laos; a rubber tree farm; a traditional weaving factory where we observed an elderly woman work on a textile designed in the "pattern" of Nan River; and rice paddies where we waded out into the fields to watch two farmers, knee-deep in water, push rice plant bundles into the flooded soil.

Forging the river

After lunch, the truck dropped us off at the edge of a hillside and we began our 4-hour trek to the village. We crossed through several streams, passed the occasional cow herder and group of farmers at the top of a neighboring hill, hiked up steep hillsides slathered in lush green rice and corn fields (the Hmong's two central crops), and ducked through muddy bamboo-covered (and mosquito-INFESTED) forests. I was the first to slip and fall on my ass, so I owe everyone a beer ("the rules!" according to Nong)... but I did win when we made mini boats out of leaves and raced them down a stream. Maybe it evens out.

Our last climb - 400 meters - took us to what felt like the very top of the mountain, and in every direction we could only see green rolling hills. Once my sorely out-of-shape lungs caught their breath... the views were absolutely stellar. 

Around 6 pm, we arrived at the Hmong village. It was made up of a main gravel road cutting up through the mountain, with smaller dirt roads leading out to clusters of wooden hut buildings. The "homestay" we were sleeping in was a thatched hut with two rooms, each with two floor pads and a mosquito net set up on the ground. We had a little gate in the front to keep the chickens out, and a table to eat at. The village appeared to have about one lightbulb per building cluster - none at all in our hut. 

Nong took us on a walk and showed us the school grounds, where we garnered an entourage of young Hmong children who trailed behind us the whole afternoon, cackling with laughter. Almost every kid had a chicken - sometimes two - tucked into the crook of his arm. Nong explained that many Hmong raise roosters and chickens for cockfighting, which can earn about 500,000 baht for a victorious bird owner. 

Hmong children find us irresistibly hilarious

After our walk, we showered (well, poured cold water over our head inside the "bath room"), and a Hmong woman and Nong cooked us a dinner of rice, stewed vegetables, tofu, and tea. We went to bed around 8 pm... partly because we were dead tired, and partly because our one candle had burned out.

Day Sawng

A Mlabri tribe family

The next morning we woke with the roosters, and set out for Day 2 of hiking. This time, a young Hmong guy named Som led the way and Nong trailed in back. Som didn't speak any English, so he didn't stop much - or at all - for chit chat. We powered through several hours of hiking through the corn and rice field hills - with some marijuana plants thrown into the mix! (I don't think we were supposed to see that, Nong) - and then into the jungle, where we came across a Mlabri tribe family. On an embankment, in a skillfully-made tent of banana leaves and bamboo stalks, sat an older men in loincloths, two woman, and 6 young kids wearing grungy t-shirts. Each of them were skin-and-bones.

Nong spoke a few words to them, opened his knapsack, and pulled out 4 or 5 individually wrapped cakes and a slab of pork fat - apparently a customary food gift for visitors to bring. He tossed the cakes to the kids, while the man took the slab of fat. He began cutting it up, bracing a machete between his two feet and dexterously sliding the thick slick pieces up through the knife's sharp edge. He put the pieces into a bamboo shoot and stuck it into a fire pit in front of them. A few moments later, it was ready and removed... the man cut the cooked fat into smaller pieces, which were shared and quickly devoured by each family member. 

Saturday evening Nong left us and we were introduced to Cho. He brought us dinner and later, told us a "bedtime story" (at our request) about how the hill tribe people were created. The story went on for a long time (Cho is a thorough storyteller), and I may have tuned out for a good chunk of it... but from what a I recall it involved high spirits, a brother and sister mating and giving birth to a piece of "soft meat," and cutting up the meat so it could become the future population of the Hmong tribe.  

Day Saam

Cho wore slacks, a button up shirt, and a leather hat on our 13 km hike on Sunday, but only needed to pause his quick sure pace whenever he wanted to show us plants that can be used as potent body deodorant or teach us some new Thai phrases (both would happen sporadically throughout our trek). He took us in a different direction than we had gone the two previous days - a direction that involved a lot fewer clear-cut paths and a lot more fallen tree branches that required us to toss our backpacks over them, get on the ground, and crawl through the mud to get to the other side. It was our longest of the three days of trekking, and I felt mentally exhausted for most of it (not to mention physically), but Cho kept us entertained. He even carved us homemade chopsticks to eat our lunch with. 

We reached the end of our trek at a roadside where Mrs. Fhu would pick us up around 2 pm, and we parted ways with dear old Cho. Mrs. Fhu picked us up, banana sticky-rice snacks for us in tow, and took us back to Nan city. I stumbled through the front door of my apartment Sunday afternoon caked in mud, my t-shirt so wet with sweat that you might have thought I fell into a pool on my way up the stairs. We had promised one of Emily's first graders, Om, that we would attend his 7th birthday party Sunday night - (he calls her Ajaan Barbie - how could we not go???!) - so we scrubbed ourselves clean, fought the fatigue, and changed into our finest party attire. Despite the 4 very tired ajaans in attendance, Om seemed to have had a blast.