To the trees

So I've booked a three day trek into the mountains in Northern Thailand. Bun (boon) is our guide. He's 33 and recently married. We are three foreigners, faranga as the Thais call us, Carlston from Germany, JP from Ireland, and me.

Our first stop on the rode was at a local market. Talk about beautiful vegetables. And quite an assortment of meat, pigs' heads feet, cow liver, you name it. One woman had a big plastic bag of frogs and was hammering them to death with a mallet. Frog legs, anyone?

The second stop of the day, we rode about an hour outside of Chiang Mai to a huge natural water fall. The water falling about 40 feet or so on your shoulders was intense. Quite a massage. At the parking lot, a man sold ice cream. I had sticky rice flavor; it was pink!

We hiked into the mountains for several hours and stopped at a local village. Water buffalo are the main source of income. They also farm the land and weave. The countryside has electricity from solar panels donated by the government. In the rainy season, no sun, no electricity. We slept on mats under mosquito nets in bamboo huts. And the shower was a spigot and bucket of water. The same water you use to brush your teeth, wash your body, sink your waste, primitive for me indeed. There is a squat toilet and sewage trvels down to the river, if you're so lucky to live on one. Otherwise, it forms a puddle somewhere in the village.

I bought a local bag and bracelet from one of the tribeswomen. The Thai highlands are made up of several villages of people from across Asia. This tribe, Kara, are said to be from Tibet.