Hill Trek Day 1: Elephants and Ban Yafu 20th Jan

After a rather relaxing stay at Naga Hill, Leon and I were feeling a little sad when we checked into the Mirror Art Guesthouse, which was 4 times cheaper but you could certainly tell by the room! Nonetheless, we were more excited about going on our 2 day hill trek the next day, so took a deep breath and made the most of our last day in Chiang Rai. The following morning we were up bright and early, and were greeted by Jahe, who was to be our guide for the entire trip. He initially came across as a quiet man, but as we got to know him we found his English to be a lot better than most guides, but he was just a bit shy about using it. Jahe is from the Lahu tribe, and we found out that we would be staying in his village that evening, and he was extremely excited to be taking us to see his home.

So off we went in the sawng thaew (open back van, pretty comfy although you can really feel/taste the dust when you're driving around!) and after being shown around a wet market and another Wat (which we had already seen), they took us about 45 minutes outside of Chiang Rai towards the more remote hillside.

That was where the Mirror Art Foundation was based and this was where we had our induction for the trip. The Mirror Art Group are an NGO (one of many in Chiang Rai) whose main aim is to protect the heritage of local hill tribes and help them to cope with the changing world around them. Alot of tribes are being forced to move out of the hills and towards the main city centre, thus taking away their self-sustaining way of life and forcing them to go mainstream i.e.sell their handicraft in the markets but a lot of them find this extremely difficult and also upsetting. We met Thellie, a Brit who has lived in Chiang Rai and worked for Mirror Art for the last 3 years, and he gave us a great insight into the work they have been doing and also the etiquette that needs to be practised when going to stay with these families. They don't like girls and boys to hold hands, kiss or touch at all really - all fairly different from the way of life back in the UK! However, of course we were more than happy to abide by the rules... which a lot of other tourists seem to break!

We were dropped off at the Elephant village, took a few photos of a MASSIVE snake that lived in a cage, just by a cafe (very random), and then faced our 2 hour elephant ride to the Lahu village. Our Elephant guide called How - was a funny man who looked about 45 but was actually Leon's age, and our lovely elephant was called Haiti. Haiti, we were told, was 39 years old and seemed like a lovely elephant. We weren't too sure about the bumpy 2 hour ride we were about to go on, and seeing that we would be doing some steep uphill and down hill elephant riding, I have to say both Leon and I were quite relieved when we reached the Lahu village (called Ban Yafu) both fully intact.

The Yafu village is fairly remote compared to others, as there isn't a road near by (the closest one is about an hour or so away), and because of this the village itself is pretty poor. We could sense this from the very basic bamboo houses, but most if not all houses had electricity for some part of the day and clean water, which I imagine some even poorer village tribes do not have. The place was full of life, with lots of chickens running around and LOTS of pigs and dogs (I stayed well away!)because each family keeps these animals, who live happily under their houses.

We were quite fortunate in that Jahe had arranged for us to stay with the village teacher, who was evidently the wealthiest out of the lot as he and his wife had the most modern house (built of concrete blocks as opposed to wooden ones) and they had a separate kitchen, whereas most families had their kitchen in the house. When I say kitchen what they really have is a big fire place in the middle of the house, almost like an indoor barbecue, which also helps to keep the termites away! As it was nearing sunset, we sat on the verandah of the teachers house, sipped on some Chang and took in the breathtaking view of the hills.

I was then taken to the kitchen where I dutifully helped the teacher's wife chop some vegetables and make dinner, whilst Leon sat and played with Naneh, Jahe's very adorable and energetic 3 year old daughter. This was the start of our education on the Yafu, who stick to the tradition that women cook, clean and weave, whereas the men build and chop things up! Dinner consisted of steamed white rice, vegetable soup and vegetable stir fry, which was all very delicious, and having had a tiring day we watched some thai tv version of The Bold and the Beautiful before putting our heads down to sleep around 9 pm. To our surprise, our host (the teacher) came out of his room with a massive rifle, only to inform us that he was off out to go hunting for some chickens! Leon was keen to go along but I pursuaded him to stay (phew!) and we dozed off to bed whilst the other men in the village went off on their hunt. Day one in Ban Yafu was extremely interesting and although we were told that this particular tribe were very shy and reserved, we really found them to be very welcoming and were very grateful to stay with such gracious people.