On Monday morning we hired a private tour company to take us trekking in the mountains southwest of Chiang Mai. On the agenda: climbing, waterfalls, Karen hill tribe people, and elephants.
Along the way we stopped at a rustic market to acquire some lunch; this would be shared with our 3 guides and the Karen family we were going to meet.
As we ascended the mountainside we observed a lot of water-laden farms. It’s harvest season right now, so the land is brownish and not very green. The weather was warm, around 83 degrees F, but some clouds kept the sun from beating down on us.
We passed some touristic spots where people were visiting and/or riding elephants. There were also places to ride bamboo rafts, but it’s off season for this pursuit, and the rafts sat empty by the riversides. At our destination we disembarked along with 2 of the guides, loaded up backpacks and began a serious trek up and down the mountainsides.
The guides stopped to examine every mushroom we encountered. Some of them are apparently tasty and worth money, but almost everything we found was judged to be “very bad” and “kill you”.
After about 2 hours of hiking we were rewarded with one of the most beautiful waterfalls I have ever seen. We lingered here in the cool mist, entirely alone with this site all to ourselves. We sat on a stone ridge and one of our guides shared with us his own lunch, some bread he makes at his “day job” as a chef. I was surprised that we saw no animal life. Supposedly there are wild pigs and monkeys in this area, and even some deer, but they weren’t showing up to enjoy the waterfall today. Overhunting has some bearing on this, according to our guides. So, the waterfall was ours. It’s always interesting how the world sounds when you get so far away from other humans that there are no motors, no outside noises, just you and nature.
After a peaceful rest that was entirely too short we started trekking uphill again. We heard the rattling of wooden and metal cow bells, and as we broke into a clearing we encountered a Karen woman harvesting rice from her paddies, with her cows munching away nearby. She was winnowing the rice and piling up the grains on plastic sheets, then packing the rice into large bags. Her only helper at this point was a dog named Dulu, who decided that we were more interesting than she was. Dulu became our faithful companion for the rest of the day, running nimbly up and down the ridges while we trudged along at a comparative snail’s pace.
We were walking along trails that were marked with tire tracks. If you heard a motor noise you all had to clear off the path quickly, because the oncoming motorbike would not be expecting people on these trails and you didn’t want to meet one head-on. Sometimes you heard an odd whirring noise, and that was a motorbike coming down the hill under gravity power, motor turned off. The motorbikes were carrying rice and vegetables up and down from the paddies.
At last we came into another clearing and found the home of the Karen family. Here was our lunch stop and a chance to rest and play a bit.
By the time we finished eating it was 4 PM and we had to get going. You don’t want to be negotiating these steep paths in the dark, and nightfall comes at 6 PM. We had 1.5 hours of trekking still to go.
On the way back to the city we stopped at an elephant camp. This is a no-ride camp, widely regarded as one of the humane ones. It was late in the day so the mother and baby were already in their pen for the night.
There is a lot of controversy about elephant tourism, and Chiang Mai is a center for this activity. You can’t avoid these conversations here. Many sites still allow and encourage tourists to ride on the elephants, either bareback or in metal boxes perched on top of the elephants. Some also employ rough metal hooks to prod or beat the elephants into submission. Almost all camps chain the elephants at night.
After feeding these elephants I have to say that they are stunningly strong and amazingly big. Yes, I knew that intellectually, but there is no substitute for the sensation you get when a 6 month old elephant grabs your arm and takes control of it for even a few seconds. You are not in control. If he wants to keep your arm, he’s keeping it. I’ve seen a local advertising photo of one of these babies laying on top of a tourist, and the tourist seems to be laughing, but if it was me I’d be wondering how many ribs were going to be broken. That is a big, powerful baby. And then the mama? Respect the mama, she’s large and in charge. There is no way for her to have a real semblance of freedom; there are no cages big enough to keep her captive, so she must be chained at the ankle for hours at a time, on a relatively short chain. The chain bothers me more than anything. I was honored to be able to look these sentient creatures in the eye and have a few long minutes to interact with them. But I have to admit, I have qualms about how humans capitalize on their captivity. There may be a domesticated relationship between the mahout (trainer) and the elephant, but I am not yet convinced that it’s a mutually beneficial one.
