Adventures in South East Asia

14 ~ Tricky Treks

Mae Hong Son, Thailand

Mae Hong Son had a reputation of hosting beautiful scenic hikes a touch more peaceful than the town of Pai, overcrowded with backpackers. The guide I had talked to yesterday had advertised that their hotel's restaurant would be open this early. He must have been yanking my chain because the chairs were still piled on the tables and not a soul could be found.

I walked back to a cute little restaurant I passed on the way in where a Thai woman with hair held back in a bun, brought me a mighty tasty mushroom and onion omelette. It tasted just like ones at home. With my stomach acting under the weather recently, I tore into the tame and buttery eggs with a smile and the hope that I might be on the mend. I was concerned I might not make it back to the trek in time so I scarfed down my meal only to go back to a nearly empty bench in front of the trekking hotel.

Soon, two couples joined the trek. A severely hung over French woman gave me hope that I wouldn't be the only semi-functional human being this morning. I had popped a few more Imodium before leaving and brought a nice grab bag of ginger chews and electrolyte packets should I needed them. We all waited for the pickup truck, which didn't seem to be coming. It was lucky for the German couple as they were still waiting on their breakfast from the late opening hotel restaurant.

The pickup truck came soon after and we all jumped in the box to go through the winding roads up to the mountains. My stomach took it all in stride, not overly impressed, but I still felt passable. Our guide stopped to pick up our lunch from a restaurant along the way. I missed Thura and his Burmese home cooking already; although, my stomach would probably argue that point.

The hike started off okay. With the hoards of fallen leaves littering the ground, I got a taste of what I would call autumn back home. The size of the leaves impressed me as they could be as large as my face at times, dried and curled at the edges.

These crunchy giants posed a slight difficulty as balance in this extreme heat had already pushed me to my limits. Add the slipperiness of monster leaves to the equation and you can imagine how I stumbled, tripped and blundered my way down the back side of the first mountain. While it wasn't the steepest descent and could all be done on foot, I still found myself teetering at times and wondering what it would feel like to slip and roll down the hundreds of meters until a large tree trunk, stump or rock brusquely ended the motion.

From our position, an endless sea of trees spanned out in all directions. A few live leaves retained their green colour, but most of the hardwoods' foliage had an orange, yellow or brown tint. Smoke limited the view of the rising and falling mountains in the distance. Luckily, it offered no vision restrictions in the immediate vicinity.

Yesterday, Greg had told me about the ping-pong blame game the Thais and Burmese played in regard to the smoke. The Burmese blamed the Thais while the Thais did the opposite, but in the end farmers from both sides were burning their crops to get ready for the upcoming wet/planting season. I later learned the Thais certainly have more regulations in place and the blame was probably not split even. The level of smoke in the air was double the safe level for children, the elderly and asthmatics.     

Once we reached the bottom, we stopped for lunch on the rainforest floor. Our guides lit a small fire so they could heat up some water for tea. The one guide who only spoke enough English to point at a few objects, like spider or tree, and give their English name with a big grin, took off to cut down bamboo stalks.

The remainder of us rested on rocks while daring to look down and see hundreds of daddy-longlegs crawling past us down the path. Their long legs travelled over my daypack, my shoes and socks in a somewhat eerie fashion. I learned at a young age, they didn't bite too often, if ever, so I just enjoyed watching the mass migration and shuddered at the occasional contact of tiny legs with my skin.

Our guide returned with the bamboo stalks, which he had cut into small cups with his machete. I hadn't been aware that bamboo had naturally formed partitions within the same stalk. His crafting involved adding little dips to make it easier for us to drink from. It was the most impressive part of our bland lunch. Although, I really should have been thanking the guides for the sake of my stomach instead of adding more chili flakes.

We continued the trek upwards, over another small mountain, and I realized that my poor shoes didn't have any grip left after eight or so years, nor did I have that aforementioned balance. One of the guides clued into this later on when he decided to walk behind me. I had hardly kept up most of the time, prior to lunch, so it was no surprise he caught on to my troubles. He nearly had to catch me a couple times when I hit the ground.

Finally, when the heat anchored my body to the ground and my muscles refused to propel me any further, the guide decided we could take a break at the summit. I ripped open a packet of the appropriately name 'Emergency-C' vitamin and electrolytes powder, which turned my water orange. The guide with a bit more English walked by me and laughed.

"You drink whiskey, now?" he teased.

I just laughed at his mildly impressed raised eyebrows and grin.  I guess I looked the part of a daytime alcoholic, but I didn't argue. "Oh ya."

He probably didn't understand the sarcasm, but I was two hours beyond caring. I just wanted to go back to the creepy lake-side room and watch streamed TV, while trying not to imagine what was on the comforter that had probably belonged to a 1970s porn star. I was beginning to realize that the situation I initially thought of as a cop-out was really what my body needed the most. 

What goes up must come down, and thankfully, I didn't use a sliding or rolling method to achieve such a feat. Thank goodness for declining dizziness. The guide hacked up a nearby tree to give me a walking stick to drive into the ground with every couple of steps. He got some serious mileage on that machete. As we neared our final destination, a nearby Karen village, rice and vegetable fields indicated our success.

We finally reached the village the guide had told me about yesterday. We asked him if anyone still spoke the Karen language or practised any kind of traditional activities and he admitted not many do anymore. This village consisted of second or third generation Karens who had assimilated into the Thai lifestyle. We sat at the bar to wait for the trucks to pick us up and go back to the city. The owners offered us all kind of pickled mango that made my stomach squirm along with the beer I also skipped.

On the way back to the city, I could say I survived my second, embarrassingly mild, hiking expedition. This stomach virus had hit me much harder than I imagined and some of those slips were more concerning I imagined.

Later that night, after a very short walk around town and some tasty Burmese potato cakes, I settled in with the impressively fast wi-fi and let myself unwind. A protest sounded in the back of my mind, unsure when I'd be back or what I was missing tonight. I silenced the thought since I had been at this for three weeks now. It was normal for a person to take a night off. Reruns of Glee and a few wattpad stories would keep me company tonight.

I remembered by bamboo cup souvenir and pulled it out of my daypack. When I looked at the bottom of the cup, I saw a decent amount of fungi grew from the inner base. There was method to their madness when the guides poured the tea before offering us the cups. Maybe they were magical mushrooms and cure my stomach ailments. Unlikely, but there was nothing wrong with hope.  

A/N: You can find more pictures of the trek and of Northern Thailand my clicking the external link to my flickr page. Thank you for reading. I greatly appreciate your reads, votes, or comments :D