All good things must come to an end, and so we found ourselves packing up and checking out of our wonderful guest house in Mae Hong Son on Thursday morning. The next phase of our “Tour Ladies” trip was beginning. We were off to the jungle and Tee’s village.
Before we get underway, a few details I don’t want to forget.
First of all the laundry lady in Mae Hong Son was wonderful! We had our laundry done twice. Martha is pretty sure the wash is done by machine, but then it is hung out to dry--just like home! Everything comes back so nicely folded and smells so nice and fresh, A small, but none-the-less important, joy.
Tee had a run in with a dog here and was actually bitten. Just barely, but it did break the skin. (I had just read an article in the Bangkok paper (English Version) about the problem of rabies here in Thailand.) They went to the Emergency Room and he got a shot in his shoulder and some other meds. He will have to get several shots...not the old kind with the long needle in the stomach, but shots still the same. : ( But better safe than sorry. I think he got a tetnus booster, too, while they had him. : ) He’ll need to go back to the closest town near his village tomorrow about an hour each way for his second shot.
Martha has also really not been feeling well. A cold, but a clogged ear. It drained a little fluid and blood which helps, I’m sure, and she’s now taking some decongestants, which should also help. We’re concerned because her plan is to leave when we do for month of working in Nepal with All Hands Volunteers--rebuilding/replacing a school, and then have a few weeks of treking. She needs to be well for that challenge. I anticipated having allergy issues myself, but, so far, so good. Drippy, as usual, but no more than usual.
Before leaving we stopped to pick up an assortment of alawaa...a custard like desert. Read about how it's made with pictures of the process here.
She offered four different kinds-all made with coconut milk...a plain coconut milk with rice flour(my personal favorite), one with wheat flour cooked in a way that made it caramel tasting, then one with a bit of baking soda or something that makes it a little more cakey, and the last one was made with sticky rice.
Here are all four...wrapped in a little portion of banana leaves (which are used for that purpose quite often). We took them to go and had a taste testing with our lunch! Yum.
On the road again! We stopped along side the road where this bean roasting process was going on.
The beans and sand (yes, I said sand) are in this large iron pot over the fire. She stirs them constantly.
They are put in baskets woven loose enough through which the sand falls. This woman was tossing the beans for a final cleaning. They are nice and crunchy like peanuts. They had several different varieties.
This was the sign along the road. Thailand is working hard at supporting and encouraging home industries highlighting the traditional ways of doing things.
Beans drying...the first step. The blue tarps make a nice way to keep them clean.
We stopped at a vista point along the way...this is really the back country...
...no one lives in these steep mountains, thought there is a river that flows around the base of them and they’ve got a little hydro electric plant going.
After a lunch (bbq chicken and rice) and a supplies stop in the closest town, Khun Yuan, and an hour’s drive including several miles of a narrow dirt road, we finally we arrived in Tee’s village...
...to discover that they were pouring concrete on some sections of the small road into the village off the main road…
...so we parked at his cousin’s house outside the village and walked in to the far end to his parent’s home.
Tee’s village is Catholic, rather than Buddhist, thus the church (which thrilled my heart).
This is Tee’s parents’ house. It is at the end of the village just up from the little creek that divides the village from the farming land. You go up and in at that area to the far right. The main part of the house is behind what you see here.
Tee’s parents were still out in the field working, so we made ourselves at home. The wood all throughout their home is teak as were these solid turned stools.
Martha found a blanket and snuggled in for a rest.
We were shown to the upstairs...which is up higher than the main house, but both of which are up on large columns of teak. This one large room was for Indira and I to share and you can see one curtained off room to the right. There are actually two separate ones, one of which Martha & Tee used--along with a resident gecko. The other was empty. His folks sleep in the main house.
They gave us sleeping pads and plenty of blankets to make up our little nests.
I took this picture out the upstairs window of a home across the street. Don’t know what they were cooking, but the child stayed right with it for quite a while.
Since we couldn’t drive back due to the wet concrete, Tee and his dad used this hand cart and went the long way around to bring all our stuff to us. This is at the bottom of the stairs leading up into the house. The table and log stools made a great resting spot.
Very thankful for the western toilet. Beside the toilet is a shower room--cold water only, I’m afraid. The homes in this village have septic tanks of some sort which is certainly a blessing for them.
This is the underside of our upstairs. They keep wood and equipment in it as well as use one section to park their pick up and motor bike.
This is for Phil...I know it doesn’t look like it, but this teak post is about 8 X 8. See how it has been sawed to match a concrete piling. Then there are two huge bolts that go through the area that is part wood and part concrete. Very sturdy, efficient and long lasting. Tee said they used to just use wooden posts, but, of course, the concrete doesn’t eventually rot.
To my delight, there are several hens with clutches of little chicks. So sweet to watch them.
One morning we meandered out through some of the fields that the folks in the village farm. Of course the rice is harvested, and Tee’s parents finished picking corn the day we arrived. The growing of corn was encouraged to aid the growing hog industry, but so many folks planted that the price is way down, hardly worth the seed, time and effort. A familiar story for farmers the world over.
Lots of bananas growing here, there and everywhere. Some planted, some just part of the jungle habitat.
We walked by a little pond...this picture doesn’t do it justice. The flowers were a brighter pink. So pretty.
And I’ve been surprised to see poinsettias growing in the wild here. This is just a small bush, but I’ve seen huge people sized bushes full of blossoms. Gorgeous!
Some of the gardens we passed as we walked with a variety of veggies growing, and lots and lots of peppers.
Maybe long beans growing on the bamboo set up for vines to climb over.
Our fearless hike leader. She was great to help my unsteady self over the board creek crossings and up and down the irrigation checks as we walked. I was remembering how I used to gallivant all over creation as a young person. Didn’t occur to me then that my gallivanting days would someday end. Makes me think of all the traipsing around Pop and I did in the hills and caves around Camp Bethel. He would have been 68 at the time...oh my!
See the little path we were following. Martha was here just under two years ago and that little banana grove was not there! Things grow fast in the jungle!
The little path beside an irrigation canal through the woods.
Most of the fields have a bamboo/wooden shack of some sort built up so out of the water when the rice fields are flooded. People live in the village and walk out to spend the day in the fields. The little home-away-from-home provides a spot to rest, store a few needed things, fix a lunch, etc. Martha thought a nap would be lovely!
In the afternoon we walked throughout the village.
A home around the corner from Tee’s.
Tee’s dad is quite the builder. He has built several of the houses in the village. This one took about a year, and he planed the boards himself. Electric tools, but no milling. This is Tee’s aunt’s home...his mom’s sister. It’s by far the fanciest home here...brick work around the base...
...it’s three levels as it’s built into a hill so there is a lower level you don’t see from here. She has a nice neat garden behind that fence on the right.
This is taken from the other end of the entry porch you saw in the previous photo. Glass windows, which are very unusual here.
Another photo for Phil...they used actual tree trunks to support things and then cut into them to place the rafters. You and Tee’s dad would get along fine! Actually makes me think a bit of Cliff and Bob and the New Covenant work crew!
We came into her home from the back at the bottom level. The whole level is tiled with these beautiful tiles. Every home has at least one or more of these slab teak tables.
Then up the half stairs to the main floor, which is also tiled. A beautiful home!
Farther on our walk, you can see three homes here...again, in this village, the homes are mostly made of teak.
We came to the church and rested on the front porch. This home is up the hill from the church. As you can see clothes hanging out in so many of the photos, Indira and I decided it must be washday here.
The Church is two levels. There is a concrete floor, open air “fellowship hall” down below, and this beautiful wooden sancuary. No benches needed. Everyone easily sits on the floor in their homes and in church.
I took this from the sanctuary doors looking down at the little porch and on out the lane, across the creek and toward the road.
This isn’t a very good picture, but I saw this spider in a web. It is about 2.5 inches top to bottom. Tee calls it an “election” spider, because it is in the shape of on “X” like you mark your ballots. : )
I haven’t said anything about the dogs. Along with the chickens and rooster, they just are there. Not sure if they actually belong to anyone, although a couple of specific ones seem to hang out at Tee’s folks’ place. But even in Mae Hong Son and Chiang Mai, the dogs just are around. They lay in a warm spot on the road and folks go around them as often as they beep to have them move. I know Tee’s mom gives them the meal’s leftovers...there’s no refrigeration in this village.
Actually, very little electricity...a few homes have a solar panel and a battery enough for a couple of lights in the evening and Tee’s folks have enough to power a television for a couple of hours in the evening...just like Phil and I. : )
And we got all the way back to the “main” road. We sat there a bit while Tee went to visit with someone. Several folks on motorbikes came by and I know they wondered what in the world we crazy white women were doing. If we were waiting for a bus, it would be a long wait...no buses out in the jungle!
The main road, however is now paved...a project that has happened in the last year. It’s got something to do with having a more accessible trading route into Thailand from Myanmar (Burma). (We are about 5 k from the border). They pretty much followed the older dirt road. It makes coming and going much easier for the folks here, too. It’s not the way we came in, but will be how we go out.
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