nan, chiang kong, and impending laos
hello!
it seems like so long since i wrote. thanks for all your worry about trees and mullets. all the tree-related injuries are healing just fine, though the mullet-related scarring will sadly last a lifetime...
we went from chiang mai over the hills to the east - to the village (though it's a city, it seems -the capital of the province of the same name) of Nan. we arrived at about 9pm and, while sitting at the only open food establishment near the bus station, munching unexcitedly on our plates of chicken fried rice (no veggies - it was the best we could muster in thai - not a lot of english speaking or english menus in Nan), a sweet young thai girl came up to us and asked if she could help us out. it was all good vibes and she and her mom gave us a ride to a hotel that night. we were grateful. next morning we all had breakfast together, and her mom was shocked to see americans eating rice for breakfast! she thought we all only ate ham and bread and stuff from the 7-11. we showed her though - with our rice and chicken with basil and tofu with mushrooms and stuff... yum. i've discovered salty for breakfast - k8 - be proud of me.
we spent the rest of that day looking around the city of nan - cool temples with buddha facing all four entrances to one temple... just cool. they're each interesting in their own way. you'll have to wait for the pictures, cuz i just can't describe them. when you go into the main building where the buddha images are - there's just this quiet feeling in the place. maybe it's because shoes or off or there are murals on the walls and monks walking around, or maybe it's because there's at least one buddha image looking down at you, but it's just really quiet. it's cool.
we also found out about a hill tribe trek. now, technically the appropriate name is mountain people because not all the groups have chiefs, so they're not tribes. but everyone calls them hill tribes. including the lonely planet phrasebook. so, we went the following day along with 4 french girls who are currently working in bangkok. they spoke some english with us, but mostly rattled off in french, leaving me to catch only the occasional mot. we got driven about for a while with a guy who would only give his name as jackie chan and who showed us all kinds of silly tricks with foliage. he made a boat, and a hat, and blew bubbles with this one vine. there were seed pods that exploded in our hands when combined with water... he was fun. our guide, though, was named sammy. he was an old dude with a marvelous wrinkled face and a tiny ring of blue around his brown eyes. really sweet and decent english too. he lived in new york for a few years - in queens, actually, working at a delicatessen. remembered "white, rye, or whole wheat." moved back to thailand 15 years ago.
then we left the rusty red jeep and took our feet a-walkin through fields and over some pretty big hills from a htin village to a yao village (the southeast asian children are just adorable. i know that's stereotyping and demeaning them, but they just are. i'm sorry.) that night we stayed in a hmong village (after more walking) at the home of the man who was to be our next guide - a hmong man himself, chau (i don't know how to spell such things). his wife made us green curry and bamboo shoots and he answered lots of our tough questions about the government forcing the groups into permanent villages instead of allowing them to continue their nomadic lifestyle, and about shamans and religion and sickness and the afterlife and all kinds of things. we really grilled him, and he held up quite well. some of this chatting went on during MORE walking the following day (i guess it WAS billed as a trek, so it was to be assumed there'd be lots of walking...) when we visited a group that not many people get to see. they're only in the nan province of thailand, and there are only 15 families total. they travel in family units and they're called the mlabri, or the spirits of the yellow leaves. they build bamboo and banana leaf temporary shelters and stay there only until the leaves yellow. then they move on. their language is fascinating (lots of falling sounds - short words pronounced the long way, as if calling between mountains) and they lived so simply.. had their fire on one side, their bamboo holding water next to it... that's pretty much it. chau brought them a gift of pork fat which they stuck in a bamboo tube with some sweet potato from a field and put it on the fire. a few minutes later: chow time. so interesting. felt a little like a zoo, but at least chau was friends with them, so it was a bit better than just that. and nabia showed them our family picture and we explained who everyone was (with chau's help). so that was cool. lots of pictures taken, as i'm sure you've guessed.
there's more to tell - an adventure that won us some bananas and a t-shirt, and 9 hours on a bus today, but i've got to get some sleep before i cross to laos tomorrow! it's 2 days on a boat to luang prabang, the next possible internet place, so comment away, and i'll be back in a few.
love!
amy
email me
it seems like so long since i wrote. thanks for all your worry about trees and mullets. all the tree-related injuries are healing just fine, though the mullet-related scarring will sadly last a lifetime...
we went from chiang mai over the hills to the east - to the village (though it's a city, it seems -the capital of the province of the same name) of Nan. we arrived at about 9pm and, while sitting at the only open food establishment near the bus station, munching unexcitedly on our plates of chicken fried rice (no veggies - it was the best we could muster in thai - not a lot of english speaking or english menus in Nan), a sweet young thai girl came up to us and asked if she could help us out. it was all good vibes and she and her mom gave us a ride to a hotel that night. we were grateful. next morning we all had breakfast together, and her mom was shocked to see americans eating rice for breakfast! she thought we all only ate ham and bread and stuff from the 7-11. we showed her though - with our rice and chicken with basil and tofu with mushrooms and stuff... yum. i've discovered salty for breakfast - k8 - be proud of me.
we spent the rest of that day looking around the city of nan - cool temples with buddha facing all four entrances to one temple... just cool. they're each interesting in their own way. you'll have to wait for the pictures, cuz i just can't describe them. when you go into the main building where the buddha images are - there's just this quiet feeling in the place. maybe it's because shoes or off or there are murals on the walls and monks walking around, or maybe it's because there's at least one buddha image looking down at you, but it's just really quiet. it's cool.
we also found out about a hill tribe trek. now, technically the appropriate name is mountain people because not all the groups have chiefs, so they're not tribes. but everyone calls them hill tribes. including the lonely planet phrasebook. so, we went the following day along with 4 french girls who are currently working in bangkok. they spoke some english with us, but mostly rattled off in french, leaving me to catch only the occasional mot. we got driven about for a while with a guy who would only give his name as jackie chan and who showed us all kinds of silly tricks with foliage. he made a boat, and a hat, and blew bubbles with this one vine. there were seed pods that exploded in our hands when combined with water... he was fun. our guide, though, was named sammy. he was an old dude with a marvelous wrinkled face and a tiny ring of blue around his brown eyes. really sweet and decent english too. he lived in new york for a few years - in queens, actually, working at a delicatessen. remembered "white, rye, or whole wheat." moved back to thailand 15 years ago.
then we left the rusty red jeep and took our feet a-walkin through fields and over some pretty big hills from a htin village to a yao village (the southeast asian children are just adorable. i know that's stereotyping and demeaning them, but they just are. i'm sorry.) that night we stayed in a hmong village (after more walking) at the home of the man who was to be our next guide - a hmong man himself, chau (i don't know how to spell such things). his wife made us green curry and bamboo shoots and he answered lots of our tough questions about the government forcing the groups into permanent villages instead of allowing them to continue their nomadic lifestyle, and about shamans and religion and sickness and the afterlife and all kinds of things. we really grilled him, and he held up quite well. some of this chatting went on during MORE walking the following day (i guess it WAS billed as a trek, so it was to be assumed there'd be lots of walking...) when we visited a group that not many people get to see. they're only in the nan province of thailand, and there are only 15 families total. they travel in family units and they're called the mlabri, or the spirits of the yellow leaves. they build bamboo and banana leaf temporary shelters and stay there only until the leaves yellow. then they move on. their language is fascinating (lots of falling sounds - short words pronounced the long way, as if calling between mountains) and they lived so simply.. had their fire on one side, their bamboo holding water next to it... that's pretty much it. chau brought them a gift of pork fat which they stuck in a bamboo tube with some sweet potato from a field and put it on the fire. a few minutes later: chow time. so interesting. felt a little like a zoo, but at least chau was friends with them, so it was a bit better than just that. and nabia showed them our family picture and we explained who everyone was (with chau's help). so that was cool. lots of pictures taken, as i'm sure you've guessed.
there's more to tell - an adventure that won us some bananas and a t-shirt, and 9 hours on a bus today, but i've got to get some sleep before i cross to laos tomorrow! it's 2 days on a boat to luang prabang, the next possible internet place, so comment away, and i'll be back in a few.
love!
amy
email me
posted by theonetheycallamy at 5/23/2005 11:11:00 AM
3 Comments:
I heard you were dancing ! What an amazing few days again. Bon voyage on your boat trip and call when you reach land in Laos. Hugs, Barbara
wow, that sounds surreal. I'm in awe. wow.
-Em
Amazing, yet again. The trek to the hill-tribes sounds unbelievable...what an experience. And don't even THINK of bringing ME a gift of pork fat to stick in a bamboo tube and roast! I simply wouldn't appreciate it.
The guides all sound so fascinating- I am particularly fond of Jackie Chan, though Sammy sounded charming too! What fun. One question: what was it like when you stayed overnite in the hmong house? Was it in a village or out in the forest or what? So interesting to learn all about these cultures. We know so little about them back home, in our pretty houses with all our "stuff."
Have a safe boat ride- uneventful I hope- just pretty and relaxing would be fine.
Here's hoping there will be some sort of internet access in Laos..I just have trouble picturing all this!
Love, mom
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