Day 2 of trek
Date: Still unknown

7:00 AM

Great day yesterday. We hiked only about 4 hours but we passed by some amazing waterfalls. Hiking in 100 degree heat you sweat a little bit. The cool mountain water feels amazing when you bathe underneath its falls.

We hiked through rice fields, by buffalo & cows. We camped at a small village with about 8 guys living there. There was a river running by the village with a small waterfall that we swam in at sunset. When we arrived the men were building a tin roof on one of the shelters. All the other roofs were made out of leaves and bamboo.

I napped by the river while my 2 guides went off to get dinner. It is funny here in Thailand, I never know what is going on. It has a big part to do with the language (that I don’t speak yet) but it is more than just that. I never get a straight answer on anything. Also they will say one thing and then another thing happens. For instance today before I napped here is what happened:

“stay here we’ll be back in 30 minutes” and then 1 minute later “stay here we will be back in 10 minutes.” The guides disappeared for 1.5 hours and showed back up with chickens in hand.

I played a sort of volleyball with the men who lived in the village and it was a lot of fun. The ball was made of bamboo and it was the size of a softball. Unlike volleyball you could not use your hands or arms, only your head and legs. I did pretty well for my first time.

At night time I walked down the rice fields with one of my guides and then we hiked back up the river in the dark. We were hunting for frogs. You can see the frog’s reflection with the flashlight at night time. We caught a few and BBQ'd them up. My first time eating frog but they were tasty.

We are leaving around 9am and hiking for 3 hours. We will have lunch and hike for 3 more hours. They said it is going to be a tough hike… we will see

LUNCH TIME

This is pretty cool. We are hiking along paths that have been used for centuries by the Thai people for trading and traveling between villages. We are in the middle of the jungle yet there are villages and small farms all over the place. I have done a fair amount of hiking all over the world and this is far different that anything I have ever done before.


At one point during the morning we stopped to take a break. I had a splinter in my foot from the night before so I sat to dig it out with my pocket knife and one of the guides walked off into the woods (I have given up asking what is going on. I either do not understand or get told something that is not true. More fun this way anyhow). Ten minutes later he calls for us. He has a thin bamboo stick and is jamming it into the crack of a tree talking frantically. The other guide gets excited and grabs a stick himself. I think to myself, “oh boy they are digging out some kind of insect for us to eat.” A couple minutes later, after seeing many many different insects run out of the crack I realize that it is not insects they are after. “Flying Rat” my guide tells me as he pulls a rodent out of the tree by its hind legs. We caught two ‘flying rats’ from the tree in total (after looking at the creatures I was grateful to realize they were flying squirrel not rats).

At lunch time we passed a small village of maybe 15 people. They cooked the squirrels up for us with noodles and rice. They tasted quite good.

Life is much different here (obviously) than I am used to. In the villages people are always napping. At first I thought this was weird: “Shouldn’t they be working??? Doing chores??? Etc???” I realize however that there probably is not too much to do. They have the things that must get done and other than that they can fill their day how they like.

It seems like they put more emphasis on just being in the moment. There is no rushing around, no deadlines, no real rules or laws at all.

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I wonder how people see me as I walk through their villages, what their thoughts are. We live in two entirely different worlds. I can go to theirs or any other place in this world I want to whenever I want. Less than 99.9% of the people I encounter on this trek will never be able to come to my world. It doesn’t seem fair. I’m not assuming they would want to come to my world but I’m sure they would like the option. I know I don’t like it when someone tells me I cannot do something.

The houses are made out of bamboo walls and the floors are elevated 3-7 feet. So the wind cools the inside. The roofs are made out of dried leafs lashed to bamboo rods. One village we passed through had a large satellite and solar panel outside. It was funny to see: they have the same exact house their ancestors lived in thousands of years ago and then they had a slice of technology out of the 21st century.