Go Fish

PHOTO ALBUM - Soppong and Mae Hong Son

We are nearing the end of our stay in Northern Thailand. It’s a been a most enjoyable experience, Brian and I are definitely fans of this area and and will definitely be back at some point to see more. After Pai, we moved onto Soppong, where we intended to tour a couple very impressive caves and then move on to Mae Hong Son.  However, after a little research and talking to the owner of our guesthouse in Soppong, Penn, we decided instead of moving on to Mae Hong Son right away, we would  catch a ride with her to a small village called Mae Lana for the National Children’s Day celebration, and then hike on our own through some hill-tribe villages back to Soppong.

National Children’s Day is celebrated the 2^nd Saturday in January all around Thailand, and Mae Lana was the site hosting all the children from the local villages. Penn took us and 3 other guests from her guesthouse with her to Mae Lana, with a stop along the way to pick up ‘things to give to the children’ – this turned out to be sandwiches, balloons, colored pencils, etc, which would be given away as prizes in the games. The games were fun to watch – they tied balloons to the kids ankles and they had to try to pop each others’ balloons, they played musical chairs, and there was some game where it appeared they had to blow up a balloon until it popped, and the first person’s balloon to pop wins. Groups of all ages had put together organized dances to perform, there were educational booths all around (I saw a poster titled “The Smoker’s Body” in English), and even the soldiers were getting into the spirit and letting the kids play with their unloaded guns (disturbing).

We spent an hour or so at the festival, and then Penn drove us up to a Lahu village where she buys the coffee she serves at the guesthouse. (Coffee up in northern Thailand has been superb, especially compared to the Nescafe served everywhere else we have been in Thailand). Turns out  that it’s a pretty painstaking process to get coffee beans from the tree to the bag you open to make your coffee, and it’s all done by hand.  Penn told us that  at one time Starbucks was looking to source beans from this village, and was willing to pay  four times more than what she paid for the beans (she buys about 3000 kg a year), but the village turned them down. It’s a small village of about 16 houses, and it sounded like Starbucks had too many stipulations and that they wanted them to add infrastructure they probably couldn’t support. 

After the coffee tour, Penn dropped us off back at a guesthouse in Mae Lana which had lovely little bungalows surrounded by farm land and gardens.  It was incredibly peaceful, and we were the only ones staying there for the night. We went and toured another cave during the day, and came back to an excellent meal in the evening, most of which probably came from the garden.  The next morning, our stomachs full of delicious homemade pancakes and coffee, we headed up into the hills around Mae Lana.

 After a couple hours of walking, surrounded by gorgeous scenery, we reached a Lahu village of Yai Pa Nai. Penn had mentioned that we could do a homestay here, so we thought we’d try. We walked through the village, and eventually a family called out to ask where we were going, and we said we were looking for a homestay, and they ushered us right into their house. We soon learned this was about the extent of their English, and communication for the rest of the day was mostly gestures.

Their place was set up as two bamboo huts – one was a sleeping/living area with TV – though we were never invited in to this area, and the  other a common area where they had a fire and did all the cooking and eating. The pigs and chickens and cats and dogs all lived below the house, which was up on stilts. The squat toilet appeared to be one of a few shared by the village, and was luckily only a couple doors down. They laid down a bamboo mat in the corner of the common area, and gave us a huge pile of blankets.  After setting us up, they continued on their day – the woman was sewing, the man left the house, and the children were alternately playing and eyeing the strangers in their house.  Food appeared throughout the afternoon – a bowl of noodles, and some fruit that came with a bowl of a salty/spicy mixture that we were supposed to mix the fruit with (which of course we didn’t figure out on our own, to the amusement of the kids).  

Not sure what else to do, we brought out a deck of cards, and started teaching the girls Go Fish, the only game we could think of that didn’t require extensive explanation (given the language divide). The game was a hit, and the longer we played, the more kids came to watch, and once they figured it out they wanted to play, as well. We were up to 10 people at one point, and the kids seemed to have an endless capacity for the game – as soon as one game ended, they were handing us the cards to deal another round. It was entertaining, but  4 hours into the game, Brian and I were both relieved when we were called for dinner. 

We sat on the floor with the family around a circular table with about 5 dishes on it, most of which I cannot identify but all of which were delicious, and a big plate of rice in front of everyone at the table.As we started eating, the extended family started coming over, and just sat down and watched us eat. None of them ate themselves, just watched us eat and seemed to seemed to find humor in the fact that I could only eat one plate of rice (throughout Thailand, I’ve observed that everyone has an endless capacity for rice and appears puzzled that we don’t). It appeared as though there were 4 generations in the room, and although we couldn’t understand anything they talked about, it was fun to listen to the inflections and watch the interactions between the family.

They talked to us some through hand gestures as we enjoyed some green tea after the meal - we established that we would be leaving by foot the next day, not by motorbike, which they seemed to find incredulous, we communicated that we were married, and were asked at one time if we were going to have babies soon(that one took me a second, I was mixing up the ‘pregnant’  gesture with the “you must be full’ gestures I was getting earlier concerning the rice, and I think I turned bright red which made everyone laugh), and as we were drinking our 2^nd cup of tea, they indicated that the tea would definitely keep us awake at night (which it did). Eventually everyone went back to their respective homes, and we went to bed, which was surprisingly comfortable given we were basically laying on a couple blankets for padding. 

It turns out village life starts early – at 4 am the truck started as  those that needed to headed off to work, and this in turn got the pigs all riled up. After they finally hushed up, we were woken up on and off for the next couple hours by roosters, and finally at 7, there was some announcement over a loud speaker that seemed to be intended for the entire village followed by someone repeatedly honking their horn (we think this was the school bus - i.e. pick-up truck  taking the kids to school). So we were up as well, and had a delicious breakfast with more unidentifiable but delicious food but less of an audience this time as it was now Monday – a school and work day.  After paying for our stay and giving our sincere thanks we were on our way by foot back to Soppong.  

It was a wonderful experience, to say the least.   Though we wish we could have communicated with our hosts better to be able to learn a little more about their way of life and culture,  it was interesting nonetheless to get a brief glimpse into it while also being away from a somewhat “staged” home-stay set up for tourists.

The one thing that stood out was that the village seemed as one – it seemed like homes were open to everyone, and  families stay together  in the village and remain close-knit. Some of this may be out of necessity – they speak their own tribal language in the villages, and from what we’ve  been reading, may not be recognized as full citizens by the Thai government.  They’re more isolated merely by their location up in the mountains, although we noticed that despite the lack of technology when it comes to infrastructure, there were  satellite dishes, cell phones, and vehicles around in the village.  I think we will definitely continue to try to do home-stays in the future – it’s an interesting experience for us, and it provides some income (and apparently, entertainment) to the families hosting us.

Right now we are spending two nights in Mae Hong Son - another picturesque and relaxing town in northern Thailand on the tourist trail.  There are beautiful Wats, coffee houses, and restaurants surrounding a small lake in this city surrounded by mountains.  Tomorrow we embark on a marathon 16 hour bus ride to Bangkok, where we’ll then jump on another 2 hour bus ride to Pak Chong, so we can spend a couple days at Kao Yai National Park before heading back to the beaches on the Adaman coast.  We will miss northern Thailand, but are looking forward to the change of scenery and change of pace of the upcoming weeks.