Some Dartmouth Love in Northwest Thailand Part II

Pai continued...

Then we continued our trek until we made it to the Karuhn village where we would stay the night, but before we put our stuff down we hiked to two different caves and explored them. It was really cool because the caves were very authentic... no lights put up for tourists so we had to bring flashlights and headlamps to see. Also for the whole trek we didn't see any other westerners, just the village people, so it made the trip much more authentic and exciting.

Inside of the first cave

Kayla's sweet head lamp. Lifesaver

We crawled through that little opening to a separate cavern

Entrance to the cave

"Coffin cave". They said they were coffins but they would have had to be for 7 ft people or something so I'm not exactly sure what the things were. The village people never came to this cave though. Bad spirits

After the caves we relaxed in the Karuhn village. The Karuhn people have three different sects, one of while are the famous longneck women, however, the village we stayed at was not this sect. The people in the village we stayed at were mostly farmers and only grew enough for themselves. On average I think the families earned only 30,000 baht a year (that's about $1000) on the extra crops they sold. The unmarried women wore white dresses to indicate that they were eligible and once they were married they wore more colorful skirts and dresses. The men when they get married usually must go and work for his in-laws for a year and farm before him and his wife can move away and create their own family.

Young woman in her white dress... meaning she's unmarried

Two women who lived in the house we stayed at. Both were married, as you can tell from their colorful garments. The one the the left was pregnant as well.

The kitchen

These animals were clearly starved for attention. They wouldn't leave me alone

The village we stayed overnight at

It was called Maeumong village

We helped Corn and the family we stayed with cook dinner. The food was AMAZING. So fresh and so authentic. I loved it.

Kayla and I helping Corn cook

Corn used that machete/knife for everything

Cooking the chicken

Our delicious feast

While the men were cooking though they pretty much finished a two liter bottle of homemade whiskey and by the time dinner rolled around some of the local guys were quite drunk. It was very comical. After dinner we continued with some more whiskey and card games. Mainly a game that Corn new the trick to so he would win every time, and then we played Old Maid and if you lost you had to drink. This was probably one of the best nights of my trip. We practiced our Thai, learned to drink with the locals, learned that in Thai they say 'Oh my Buddha' instead of 'Oh my god', learned that Thailand is one of the top 5 whiskey drinking nations (although Corn said it should be top 3 but they only count the taxed bottles but he doesn't drink the taxed bottles), and went to bed by about 10:00 pm.

That 2 liter bottle is full of homemade rice whiskey. That was pretty much gone before the food was made.

Very drunk village man

We played drinking Old Maid and the guy on the right was the most animated cards player I've ever seen. There is no such thing as a poker face in cards in Thailand

The crew

We woke up in the morning around 7:00 am and Corn cooked us a delicious meal of scrambled egg with vegetables and corn bread and tea.

Bright and early in the morning

Then we started our trek for the day. Today we didn't have the forest to cover us from the hot sun and it had to be about 105 to 110 degrees outside. The sun was blazing! We saw some amazing views that morning though and then hiked to a waterfall where we were able to swim and have lunch. It was beautiful.

Beautiful view from our hike the second day

We stopped at the home of a Tibetan family to rest in the shade

Tibetan man making rope out of bamboo

This is the waterfall we got to swim in on the second day. We hiked here and then ate lunch. It was soo refreshing

After lunch we began to trek again but Kayla was not feeling so hot and ended up really struggling the rest of the trip with dehydration and heat stroke. We finally made it back to Pai and got Kayla a bed to rest in for the night. She ended up feeling much better by that night after she got some electrolytes back in her but we took it easy and caught early morning minivan back to Chiang mai. We got to Chiang mai around 10:30... bought a bus ticket for a 10:30 bus to Bangkok at 10:33 and caught the bus as it was pulling out of the station. Then we had a long 10 hour bus ride on Tuesday but made it back to Bangkok in one piece.

Now it's Wednesday and I just moved rooms to a quad with my original roommate and two other girls from Singapore! Also tonight my parents are coming and we're having a big going away celebration for a guy who has been living in the same building as us this whole semester, and Kayla and her friend Kiva (also from Dartmouth) are staying with us! So it should be a good night to be in Bangkok :)

Kayla and Kiva leave tomorrow to head back to the states so my parents and I will probably tour Bangkok a bit before we leave for Cambodia on Friday!