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“drank rice whisky with some Dutch boys until the stars were fading from the sky, walked off the beaten track and drove ... ” |
The Great trekk:
Our guide - Augustine: a rail thin Burmese refugee with tatoos and scars of a past life covering his frial looking body, always willing to help you out, always ready to take the easy way out.
Clare and I were as excited as ever to start out trekk into the unexplored lands (to us at least) surrounding Umphang. We packed out tiny little packs and left out gargantuous knapsacks at the Umphang Riverside Guest house - a little unsure as to wether they would still be there upon our return. The day was to start with 6 hours of "rafting" down river to our first campsite, where we would trekk inland to see the great Teelorsu - which essencially means waterfall in Thai - but also happens to be "the world's 6th largest waterfall"... at the very least, it is most certainly the largest one in Thailand. The quotations above are placed there because rafting really meant sitting in a raft and floating down stream, and I am not all together certain after having seen the waterfall that it is actually the world's 6th largest... but it sounded and looked good regardless.
With Clare and I both being Canadian tripping fanatics, we were both anticipating three incredible days of hard walking, good eating and sound sleeping. Augustine, being a Burmese/Thai trip fanatic, anticipated three days of minimal walking, little eating and much time relaxing with his other Burmese friends. We managed to strike a happy medium between employee and customer - but it took some motivating. We ended up having a great time regardless - because the nights were so unseasonably cold, neither guides nor trekkers got any sleep which meant taking it easy on some routes was a welcomed idea. We jumped the waterfalls, played many a game of Yuker with two German guys we met (Nick and Patrick), drank rice whisky with some Dutch boys until the stars were fading from the sky, walked off the beaten track and drove and elephant home.
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Brother Sal says:
rice whiskey? urrrgh. barf. though I am sure it's spectacular. watch out for the buckets! xoxo Brother.