| into buying a not very nice bad from the daughter - always the children with pleading eyes! A long, hard day up and over mountains to reach our village for the night. The father from last night came with us as it turns out our 'guide' doesn't know the way and needs him to help! So he (from now on referred to as 'the mountain goat') took us on numerous short cuts away from the path and through the jungle - I've lost count of the cobwebs I've walked through and branches flung back in my face!! Both of us spent the day soaked in sweat - could ring our clothes out and my hair! Some lovely views though, from pearing through bamboo and the trees so couldn't take photos. Thankfully we had roast pork for lunch, while the others had the frogs - we also had loads of fresh pineapple and mango which was delicious, but really filled us up - hard to start walking uphill again! Finally got to the village after walking past vast burnt areas, where they're getting ready to sow rice, and discovered we're staying with the mountain goat's parents......... Same sort of hut, same intimidation - turns out we couldn't talk to them even if we knew Thai - they have their own dialect. Same hose pipe shower, but so nice to have it! The daughter (we think) killed a chicken and plucked it in no time for our dinner - can't get fresher, but was as tough as old boots! 25th April 2006 The day started well - we reached the second mountain ridge quite quickly, but then the route changed and we had to go up and down another couple of extremely steep slopes, where my feet gave in - took off my boots to show the huge red raw blisters on my heels and tiny blisters on every toe! Terry bandaged the heels as the others looked on in shock and then we continued with me wearing Terry's sandals - felt like I had clown's feet, they're so huge, so kept tripping and didn't last long before I had to put the boots back on and whack some pain killers down - kept dreaming of a helicopter rescue!! They made me a nice ople our of bamboo to help on the downhill bits, but surprise surprise I ended up with two blisters on my hand from it! Found a tarantula nest, so La put a stick down to entice it out, but this didn't work so one of the others dug the hole out until we could see it - huge!! La kept prodding and it jumped after him - quite a sight seeing him run away like a girl after trying to be so macho! Because we were camping out that night they needed to find some food so caught two monitor lizards and then picked up a tortoise too! Luckily the tortoise made an escape when we stopped but the lizards weren't so lucky - quite tasty though! They made a bed for us from bamboo (Ray Mears eat your heart out), complete with bamboo candle holders - bamboo is so versatile, they made us cups, spoons, plates and cooked all the food in it too. While they were collecting the bambo, Terry and I washed as best we could in the river - amazing how clean you feel after washing in a muddy river! Left the blisters open to dry only to get an ant crawl on one and bite me - agony! Got into bed with the rest of the ants and put the mosquito net up and then lay watching the lightening all around, hoping it wouldn't rain! 26th April 2006 It didn't rain and we both got a fair amount of sleep. When we got up La, the goat and the younger porter were gone - fishing, so Terry wrapped my feet (worst one now looks infected from the ant bite) so they were nicely cleaned and covered and I put his sandals on again - looked like Moses! After breakfast - cornflakes with our bamboo bowls and spoons - we set off and immediately had to cross the river, almost waist deep, so the socks came off and the bandages got soaked so were useless. we supposed to be following the river all day according to La, so next I tried wearing my flip flops, put couldn't easily scramble over the boulders, fallen trees, leaves, sand, mud, spiders and ants, so resorted to bandaging again and back to the boots and pain killers! Continued following the rivers, having to cross backwards and forwards to find a way through the jungle growth - I refused to get my feet wet anymore - running out of first aid bits, and dirty water not helping against infection - so we had to find places with rocks we could balance on and the goat went out of his way to cut down bamboo to lay across other parts or move rocks into place! After hours of pain and me trying everyone's patience we finally arrived at the next village to stay the night. On the menu tonight - more monitor lizard, wild boar, fish from the river today..... really nice! Another night sleeping on the wooden floorboards, but got extra blankets to pad it out! 27th Apri 2006 I hate cockerals!!! Everyone up again at the crack of dawn while we stayed in bed trying to ignore the daylight, noise, smoke from the fires and an awful smell from whatever was being cooked, until we had to give in and get up! After pancakes for breakfast we left at about 8.30am to walk the '6km to the village of Pontok', along the road so that I could wear flip flops. A lot easier to walk and kept up a good pace, but the '6km' was a lie - didn't arrive until 2pm - was more like 15km and up and down very steep hills again - completely worn out by the end! Almost stood on a poisenous snake in the middle of the road too - looked like a large twig! The scenery was nice and with the easier walking we could appreciate it more. One of the porters made Terry a pop gun out of bamboo - very clever! Terry then managed to accidently hit me in the face with the paper ammo!! Got picked up from Pontok with perfect timing as the heavens opened and in a matter of seconds everywhere was flooded and bridges were broken, and then drove the last 6km to Pai. Had lunch before saying goodbye to everyone and finding a guesthouse with hot showers - which we paid extra for and then there was a power cut so had to have a cold shower anyway!! Had an early night as both shattered and not much to do with no power! 28th April 2006 Rained all day with constant power cuts - no internet, shops shut etc.. so rather boring and depressing. Slept for four hours in the afternoon and then managed to use internet after trying 5 times! 29th April 2006 Left Pai in the rain and spent the cold, miserable day in a mini bus to Chiang Khong on the border of Laos. Changed busses in Chiang Mai and had a spare half hour so popped to the guesthouse where we spent Songkhran to say hello. Arrived in Chiang Khong just before dark. Had dinner whilst watching football with an avid Man U fan and booked our slow boat tickets. |