Trekking Scouting Trip

At the last second possible, I was told to head up towards Mae Hong Son to survey a route for a new program. Mae Hong Son is the province that is in the far Northwestern part of Thailand and borders Burma. It is a very mountainous, remote, and diverse area of Thailand, and because of all of this, it is my favorite part of Thailand. The plan, heading out of Mae Hong Son city was to hike over 100 miles to the south to the city of Mae Sariang. We needed to blaze a trail that stayed away from the main roads where elephants could trek next year. Other than that, we had no plan, nowhere to stay, no map, and no trail to follow. This is not like hoping onto the Appalachian Trail with your backpack, tent and a clear trail to follow. We were heading deep into the jungle through hilltribe villages and asking locals to guide us on to the next place. For the first part of the trip, we did have a support truck to carry our stuff and to help plan a path, but that soon went by the wayside as the path got more remote and inaccessible. On the trip, I was accompanied by Maggie (a photographer for Rustic), Bay (a local Ahka ethic guy), Nueng (a local Karen ethnic guy), and Pa (a 50 year old Karen guy that will head up the leading of this trek next year). This trip proved to be very challenging and a great insight to life in past times when people always traveled in this way.

On the first day, we started off pretty late because we were trying to buy supplies and plan a little for the trip. Because of this late start, we ended up riding in the truck for a bit this day and didn’t actually hike that much. It worked out really good though, because there was a beautiful 4WD road that led through many Karen villages. We stopped by every village and saw some really amazing places not far from the border with Burma. That night, we were also able to stay in the house of a really nice Northern Thai family and find our guide for the next day. At this point, we still were not clear on the exact plan because of communication issues and were quite frustrated. We spent a lot of time talking this night and worked out more of a plan. Unfortunately, working with Thai people never goes smooth. They tell you they are going to do one thing, and then will turn around and do something completely different. This made the first few days of the journey frustrating and tiring. We always had to fight to get the people to understand what kind of terrain we wanted to hike through and what kind of places we wanted to spend the night. Civilization was much too close in the first half of the trip and we just couldn’t get it in the guy’s head that was planning for us what we wanted to do. The next few days were long hiking days, spending a lot of time walking through rivers. The rivers were amazingly beautiful and clear. Going by river also allowed us to see many insights into mountains culture. We met people fishing, building dams for irrigation, and washing clothes. We drank fresh made jungle tea and told the locals about our crazy adventure. We would always end up right near the main roads, just taking shortcuts though the jungle to do this. The made it easy for us though. The truck carried all the food and water and provided great support for the trip. Even though all this was great, it wasn’t really the kind of trip we were trying to plan….

Three days into hiking, we got in after a very long day of hiking into a village right along the main road. Here, we stayed in a really small hut with an old man who said he would be our guide for the next three days into Mae Sariang. This guy was 68 years old, but seemed strong and said he knew the path well. The next morning, we took off for our next village after waiting for our guide for over an hour. The day was already not going well. As we continued down the path, the guide would continually stop to smoke a cigarette and complain that his legs were hurting. It was a slow pace and we were all getting frustrated. Then, the guide started to get lost. We wandered around this valley for hours in circles trying to find the path through the mountains to the next village. Late in the afternoon, we finally made it into the village where we were going to spend the night. We were all tired and frustrated with both the guide and the truck driver. This day, we had carried all of our stuff in with us because the truck driver said he could not reach the village by truck. However, upon arriving, a truck pulled right past us into the village. This is when we decide to change all of the plans and take everything into our own hands.

The village was a really cool Karen village and we were able to buy a chicken in this village to kill and eat for dinner. Our host family was very excited to have us stay with them and happy to help us plan the rest of our trip. During this conversation, we decided to tell our old guide to go home, we hired a new one to get us to the next village and told the truck driver we didn’t need him for the next few days. The new route that we had chosen had no villages accessible by truck during this time of the rainy season. We were finally on our own and able to control our own path. Excitement was back up and we had planned a very strenuous schedule for the next 2 days. We had planned to do 40k (25 miles) the first day and 50k (30 miles) the next. The fun was just beginning.

From here, our supplies were low because we no longer had the truck. We set of with bags of rice, a jar of peanut butter and a bottle of water each that we had boiled the night before. This day started off really hard. We hiked up and over many ridges. Maggie had a bad knee a this point and it was really hard for her on the inclines. It was also very hot, muggy and the mosquitoes where swarming. On top of that, we all had leeches trying to crawl up our pants. We went through some beautiful terrain this day though and passed through many small Karen villages. About 4 hours into the hike, we popped out of the jungle and found the Thai army crawling out of trucks with big guns. They said they were out to patrol the illegal cutting of trees. At this point, we were very close to the Burmese border and it is likely that Burmese people were sneaking over to cut teak trees and take them back to Burma. Soon after this, dehydrated and tired, we stopped at a house in a small village where they let us sit, eat and boil water. Hot water is not exactly what you want to drink when you are thirsty on a hot day, but we had no other option. As the trek continued on, we had to climb over several mountain passes and then into a beautiful streambed. Due to lack of water, the stream was a welcome sight and we all drank a little water to keep us going (luckily I never got sick off of that water). Late in the afternoon, we made it to the village where we were going to spend the night right as a huge rainstorm hit. We all stood out side in the rain for a long time, washing our clothes and collecting clean rainwater to drink. That was the only time it rained on the whole trip. It was surely a gift of much needed water from the Heavens. We had a great night here as we conversed with the locals and killed another chicken for diner. We spent the evening hunting grasshoppers and talking with our guides and host family. I love to be in remote Karen villages. They have such an amazing and peaceful way of life, and they are some of the most hospitable people in the world.

The next morning, we woke up and decided to send Maggie out by motorcycle because her knee was too bad and we had a long day ahead of us. Now, it was just the boys, and we took off at an incredibly fast pace. We climbed up the mountain out of the village and followed a ridge for a long time. From here we dropped into a river and headed towards the valley. Unfortunately, today was another day filled with mosquitoes and leeches. All of our ankles were bloody from the leeches all day. A leech wound takes forever to stop bleeding. But today, we didn’t care because it was the last day and we were all determined to get to the end. We didn’t talk, stop for a break, eat lunch or even get any water. It was one solid push to the finish. Six hours later, we dropped into a teak forest and then popped out into the final valley. Here, the truck met us and we caught a ride to the final destination. We were all dehydrated and hungry, but happy to be at the end. We had a really hard but great last couple of days. Over 125 miles and 6 days of mountainous jungle finally stood behind us.

This was a great experience although really hard at times. I am glad I had the opportunity to make this journey just as people in the past did. We all felt as if we were explorers finding places for the first time. It was amazing to be a part of, but even better to finish.

written by  jasonreevesmiller on September 4, 2008 from Mae Hong Son, Thailand
from the travel blog: Thailand Summer 2008
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