We needed this. Thailand before had been reduced to a supermarket sweep, a race against the clock, the ticking time of a weekend against the mad dash for all previously unavailable consumables; so give us tofu burgers and fennel toothpaste; underwear that fits and electronic gear that works after a few months in the cold heat of Saigon. This time we ventured beyond our epicureal desires and boarded a sleeper for a 12 hour journey to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand, a well known stop for a previous, hedonistic generation.
We were rocked. In near sleep, in a twilight consciousness we could feel every bump, lurch and grind that the old train made. Of course, better nights sleep have been had, tucked up and duvet'd but this had an unusual element to the theatre of sleep. It was excting. Exciting to be woken up by a whistle that rattled the metal walls; odd to hear tannoy annoucements from a platform in some unknown country station where perhaps a single passenger was boarding or alighting and there we were in the haze of sleep, the limbo of travel, wonderfully, comfortably suspended in our bunks. This was recognisable travel where distance can be honestly measured by movement.
Chiang Mai was a port of call for market shopping with ersatz and authentic Hill Tribe wares side by side. This was a perfect stop for the tofu tourist and we ate well in organic restaurants and veggie havens where books from yesteryear lined the walls, where ideas from the past could be bought second hand. I remember being in shops like this where ideas were part of the commercial venture rather than a reassuring 3d wallpaper. Still, we bought what we could not get; we luxuriated in food and in an atmosphere alien to eating out in HCMC.
Then the trek with a guide that was completely enthralling. It proved demanding and somehow more raw, more basic than I had feebly imagined. I have always been a little averse to walking anywhere unless it was circuitous or had the promise of sweet reward [noises off]; I can understand the exercise element but tracing back ones steps with eyes invariably cast down to keep sure footing always struck me as some dull drudge; a Falkland yomp without the joy of killing. Sorry, but really I've never been a fan but consider me sold on jungle treks that seem to go vertical for hours with little let up apart from to cross some stream which some guide has been kind enough to bridge with a felled log. We were sweating pigly within minutes and the mozzies really took delight in biting as soon as we took a moment to rest. Still when we did stop there was a chance to hear the buzz and cry of the forest and breathe in the musk of decay. This was a sub-tropical forest of thick bamboo which the guide hacked away at with glee but there had been Teak here, an elegant and precious tree now mostly taken away, smuggled out for export.
There were times it was easy to imagine being lost in this place; a luxury of thought when in similiar forest trails not far from here, Hill Tribes like the Karen have pushed through invisible, man-made partitions and escaped into the forest as they left behind a Junta crackdown, a vicious follow-up unseen for the most part because of the camouflage of power. Still, there is progress for some ethnic groups like the Hmong on the Thai side of the border and the village that suddenly appeared out of the green was eeriely quiet save for a few children (girls) playing with piglets. The girls immediately decsended on Kate and went into a familiar ritual for all girls no doubt and certainly for these three who took delight in plaiting the strangely coloured hair. We had snaphot of existence which seemed simple and harmonious, there were bumper crops of cabbages in the field and the Thai King had donated a solar panel which allowed even in the wet season for there to be a few hours electricity every night.
After the eight hour trek and bodies now damp after wading waist deep through ice cold water holding on to a log that had been feld between the two riverbanks we were able to sit down and watch a few Thais drink some hooch and do Karaoke in a shack in a clearing. It broke the calm and peace of the walk, replaced the exotic incense of the forest with the waft of cigarettes and alcohol but then something had to. I wasn't really watching or listening. I still felt as though I was moving through thickets of bamboo.
