Sure enough there was a small fire outside and I practically stuck my feet directly in it! Washing up that morning consisted of using wet wipes and brushing our teeth with bottled water. I didn't really have a small backpack so what I brought was minimal. Along with everyone else on the trip, we had to wear all the same clothes...breakfast came quickly and was scrambled eggs with onions and peppers and loads and loads of toast! The dogs all gathered at our feet under the picnic table, hoping for some scraps and then fighting over what we did toss to them...
There was a huge black kettle of hot water sitting on the fire for our coffee, or Nescafe of course. There isn't much real coffee to be had in Thailand although I have seen a few starbucks and other coffee shops. Mostly though it's instant coffee.
After breakfast we hiked up to the Karen village, one of the many hilltribes in Northern Thailand. A small subgroup of the Karen hilltribe women use brass rings to lengthen their necks. The girls start using them at the age of 6 and add a ring each year. The womens' necks become so weak from muscle wasting that if the rings were ever removed they would suffocate. It's actually a pretty sad practice, and our tour guide said the practice would probably die off if it weren't for the tourist draw. We reached the village which consisted of bamboo bungalows set up on stilts. There was a school and there were families gathered around outside of their respective houses. Married women wear bright red or blue blouses while single women wear white. We arrived to the village just in time to witness the slaughter of a pig...the inhumane and incomplete slaughter I should say...
There was a pig tied up behind one of the houses. They distracted it with a big vat of food and one of the tribesmen came up behind it and hit it hard over the head with what appeared to be a wooden bat. The pig started squealing and they grabbed its back leg while they hit it repeatedly over the head. It was just awful and even turning away you couldn't get away from the sounds. All I could think of was that these people have been killing animals for decades upon decades, haven't they perfected this yet??
On that note, it was time for Hadas and I to split off from our group...they were going to be spending one more night while we were heading back to Chiang Mai. It was sad to say goodbye, we met lots of cool people, but it was time to go. One of the other tribesmen and his son took over as our tour guides and led us back down the way we came in...
Eventually we made it back to the place in the lower village where we had lunch. We were presented with some glass noodles, and you guessed it...pork! Of course, I had lost my appetite. We met up with a new group, mostly French people and piled into another pick up truck to go bamboo rafting...
* I'm late for cooking class, will finish this later! *
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