Trekking with the hill tribes

“I lay on the bamboo bed and looked upwards, past the ragged edge of the thatch, to the ridge high above where the trees on the fringes of the forest held out rigid limbs to create an elegant black tracery against the moon brightened sky. Then a distant rumble of thunder rolled indolently around the mountains and sluggish black clouds slowly began to stack about the peaks. Sheet lightning flashed with increasing frequency but without menace. Only twice did forked lightning hurl its searing thunderbolts earthwards to be followed by explosive roars of thunder which shook the bamboo house on its stilts. Soft rain fell in half hearted fashion but the season was not yet fully prepared and, after dampening the dust, the shower came to a fitful end, the clouds melted away and the half moon re-appeared.

“My bed, or rather my camping mat and rectangle of floor, was in Pakluay village, the home of members of the Lahu hill tribe in the rainforested hills of northern Thailand, an area so different from the rest of the country that it felt like a secret kingdom. The last place we drove through before entering Chiang Dao National Park had an atmosphere close to that of an English dormitory village with detached bungalows set in gardens with high hedges, flowering shrubs and car filled drives. As soon as we went into the park, though, everything changed.

“John Davies is an authority on the various tribes who have all been refugees in the past and have been moving into Thailand for a little over a century from neighbouring countries, including China, Tibet, Laos and Burma, bringing with them original tribal skills such as distinctive embroidery, batik and other crafts particular to the regions from which they came. By writing guides to the hill tribes, Davies has been able to explain their background and way of life. But he has also opened up the region to western visitors and the potential disaster of mass tourism. His hope is that, by setting up small scale ventures like Lisu Lodge, he can help to contain the large numbers of westerners who may want to come here. At the same time, by opening similar lodges in other villages, he will spread the financial benefits they bring.

“We followed Hod in single file along the path, finally dropping to a broad but shallow stream which we forded before climbing to the Karen village of Mae Kont Sai. The wooden houses, which clung to the hillside, were all carefully fenced to give a feeling of quiet privacy and exclusion, a real contrast to noisy and vibrant Pakluay where litters of tiny, white footed, black piglets vied with hens scratching through the dust and a dozen small children played shrilly among the houses. We had arrived in Pakluay after a jungle trek which, while it included dense rainforest in the valley bottoms, also took us along airy ridges among thickets of creaking and groaning bamboo from where we could hear the distant hoots of black faced gibbons.

“And it was at Pakluay that we boarded our bamboo rafts to take us downstream and out of the forest. Bamboo rafts do not so much float as hang in suspension in the water and total immersion is a constant threat. We ran rapids, ducked beneath fallen trees and occasionally ran headlong into rocks. Fortunately our bags, hanging on a bamboo tripod in the bows, remained above the water for most of the voyage. At last we tumbled over a fish weir and landed on a small beach to join our elephants for a leisurely stroll back to the jeeps and thus to Chiang Mai.

“Back in Bangkok on the following evening, I stood in the gardens of the Peninsula Hotel and watched a wonderful firework display over the river. Rocket after rocket hissed upwards to explode in a shower of stars above the city. The noise from the detonations reverberated around the buildings, echoing and re-echoing off the tower blocks in a much more dramatic way than the rather pathetic rumbles from the desultory thunder storm we had experienced in the mountains some days before.”

By Michael Woods