Thursday, March 12, 2009

Trekking in Chiang Mai - Karen Village

11 June 2008 @ Chiang Mai, Thailand

And so, after 3 hours of trekking, we reached a Karen hilltribe village.



Karen indigenous people are one of the famous tribe in Thailand. Some may be known through their significant long neck culture.

However, the villagers in the place I stayed do not practice the long neck thing.


There's a little stream in the small village and there's a bamboo pipe that flows water from the hill, and I mean clean cooling water.


The stream is the only source of water for the villagers. People take bath, wash their clothes and collect water from the stream. Well, since we're stay at the village, we had to live like one too. We bathed at the stream.


After bathing, we walked around the village before sunset. We realized that the people there rears pigs, chickens and cows. Almost every house you can see a piggie tied to the pole.


Some even gave birth to little piglets.


Erm... okay, I missed out. They have dogs too.


And the chickens fly...



One of their main activites of economy is agriculture. They plant all sorts of stuffs from rice, tea leaves, corns and others.

the lady is using this hulling tool to separate the rice and its husk

The sky is getting dark. We visited the toilet before going back to our "house".


The toilet is very very small, without any lights. That is why we were told to bring our own torchlight, incase we need to go to the loo at night.


While waiting for dinner, we SS-ed. We have to wear long sleeves and long pants to prevent mosquitoes from sucking our blood.

LeongKee, Kuan, MinBee, Me

Dinner is served! Food cooked by the Karen village people - Fried pumpkin with eggs, Fried mixed vege, Green curry and pineapples (a must have fruit every meal).


I don't really fancy pineapples but my perception changed after having sweet and juicy pineapples from Thailand.


After dinner, we had briefing from our guide on tomorrow's journey. Then, the head of the tribe village came to talk to us and play games with us.

Our dear friend LeongKee volunteered to play the rope game with Josh from US. The games were kinda lame but all of us tried our best to entertain the man who initiated the ice-breaking session.


It was not long till the games ended and all of us went to bed. There's basically NOTHING to do as there's no electricity at all. It was pitch dark and the only source of light is from the moon.

That's our beds, in the same room as the other ang mohs in the gang.

It was a peaceful and cooling night, though there's no fan in the room. I had quite a good night sleep, probably due to the exhaustion from the hiking. More hiking on the next day! Billy, out.

Previous post: Trekking in Chiang Mai - Day 1
Next post: Trekking in Chiang Mai - Elephant Ride

No comments:

Related Posts with Thumbnails