Hill Tribe TREK (Day 2)

March 21

I was finally roused from my sleep to the sound of wings flapping and feathers rustling only to find out that what I was hearing was the sound of breakfast being 'prepared.' We had a wonderful rice porridge complete with meat from a black chicken (really special to them and believed to have healing powers). Speaking of sacrifices we learned something really interesting about this particular tribe. Many tribes were Animists, meaning they believed in animal spirits and sacrifices and multiple gods, etc. but were converted to Christianity by missionaries not, they said, because the necessarily believed one way or the other in the religion, but because it was much less expensive to be Christian as they didn't have sacrifice all their livestock and animals to the gods whenever something went awry.

After breakfast (and the coldest shower from a bucket I've ever taken) Bupay and Milu and Milu's sister, Ami, got out all their traditional clothes and started transforming Josie and Emily into Akha women. It was hysterical how much stuff they had to put on and how ornate every detail was. They were so proud to have these two Americans in their outfits and couldn't stop laughing at how they looked (neithe could we!) We then gathered our things and followed Chai and Milu for what we thought was going to be a simple trek to some nearby waterfalls. Simple was not the right word!

We walked for a while through the hillsides, learning about how they farm their crops and taking in nature, until we got to a small stream and waterfall. We were all set for this to be our lunch spot, but Chai said we should walk a little farther upstream. So, we're walking and pretty soon we're having walk in the water a little which was cool and then we're walking some more and Chai says we can go swimming cuz it gets deeper. So, we all pile our stuff and plunge into the FRIGID mountain water--Chai then tells us we should hold our stuff over our heads cuz we need to keep going. So, Mark and I being the tallest formed a sort of assembly line where we carried all of our belongings over our heads to a series of waterfalls that Chai had scaled and handed him up the stuff before we all tapped into our inner monkey and made our way up the slippery cascade . It was really cool to be actually trekking through the water and not on some overtravelled trail.

We then reached a point where there was basically just a sheer wall and thought we were done until Chai pointed out a single shaft of bamboo bridging the gap between two walls. Naturally he just scampered across the pole and shimmied his way up to a small space where we were all to come and climb up farther to another set of waterfalls. We looked at him like he was out of his mind, but really having no choice we formed a line and started making our way up. The bamboo was shaky and not secured and you felt like you were going come crashing down only to be greeted by the Agrocrag (for those of you Nickelodeon Guts fans out there). It ended up that my dad had to stand as a base for the us to push off of to reach the ledge Chai was helping from--it was a process and I thought we were going to lose someone, but at the same time it was such a rush to be doing this all completely free-base with no ropes or hooks or anything (not something you'd probably be able to do back home).

We were all a little tired at this point and were happy to see a nice pool for a swim at the top of the cliff we just climbed only to see ANOTHER set of falls gushing before us. Being not Asian we just aren't born with the same agility that their little bodies can handle and as such were seen slipping and falling back into the pool below as we tried to climb up. Chai and some of the local guys who had met up with us found a bamboo rod that they held down to us and basically pulled us from one level to the next. At this point we were exhausted (yet still filled with adrenaline) and were relieved that the next stop was lunch, which was made by cooking food (including rice, fish and veggies) inside of bamboo. Filled and rested we completed our trek up the side of steep hill and through more countryside before making it back to our home and, unfortunately, packing up.

You wouldn't think that saying goodbye to people you just met the day before would be hard, but it kind of was. We were so lucky to be placed in the care of Acha, Bupay and Co. and had really made some cool connections while being able to share our cultures with each other. After some group photos, email exchanges and many goodbyes we hopped into our songteaw to head back to Chiang Rai. Before we finally pulled away, Bupay reached in and grabbed each of our hands saying Thank You and Goodbye in Akha--this gesture was a really big deal as this tribe is generally uncomfortable with touching anyone they don't consider family.