despite not making it to the waterfall.
We ate rice soup for breakfast, of course. Then we went to a bakery
for an encore. We succumbed to their tasty bavarian creme donut and a
croissant. Then we found homemade yogurt, which Robert improved to the
point of deliciousness by adding sugar syrup (not sure what that is
exactly, but it came in a purple squeeze bottle and was labelled:
sugar). The yogurt was most tasty of the three because both the donut
and the croissant had been microwaved to an unnatural warmth and
chewiness. Then there was a whole bathroom disaster (disaster is
perhaps an incorrect descriptor as the toilet was used entirely
correctly, just a little too traditionally for our western sanitary
standards) - let's just say that it did not involve toilet paper or
soap, but it did involve a belated, but immediate, trip to a 7-11 to
purchase hand sanitizer. Moving on...
We have a map and there is a waterfall called Mae Yen Nam Tok (nam tok
= waterfall) marked on it. In one corner there are suggested
itineraries: "by bike," and "by walk." The waterfall is listed under
"by walk" and clarified only with the distance, 7km. That being all we
knew about the excursion, off we went..."by walk."
By Walk
We walked out of town, through rice paddies (being my first time to
see these, I took entirely too many pictures), and eventually hopped a
ride to the river in a passing Aussie's rented pickup. At the river,
there was a bridge and a "parking lot," by which I mean there were
three motor bikes parked in the shade next to a sign that said,
"parking." There was no trail immediately obvious and the bridge lead
to someone's...guesthouse? Not sure, but it had a sign with an arrow,
indicating that information was available to anyone willing to climb
the stone staircase. I, of course, was coerced to gather information,
while Robert explored the riverbed and found the trail, which he
believed led directly up the river...for the next 300 yds. I, on the
other, hand found a ganja camp code named a "horse farm," never mind
all the horses in the pasture. Let me explain.
Horse Farm
I walked up the stairs and found a bunch of gnarly hippies, who I'm
sure are wonderful people, they just looked sort of gnarly. I also
found the man who had given us a lift up the road. I awkwardly butted
into his conversation with a few others and inquired where the trail
to the waterfall was. He explained that it takes three hours to get to
the falls, another three to get back and that it would be dark in less
than six hours, but there is a trail to follow "by the river." he said
if we decided not to go to the waterfall, we could plant some trees
instead. (huh!?) Oh sure, they could give us some tools and show us
where they needed to be planted, etc. I was perplexed. I vaguely
implied accent, if we didn't go to the falls, maybe we could help.
Then I asked what this place was. He glanced around at all his
companions before answering, unconfidently, "this is my, uh, friend's,
uh, horse farm." mmhmm. He reacted strangely to my offer to return as
well. "yea, you can make yourself some coffee or this is like a cafe
place." All in all, I left with the impression that I had stumbled
upon something that was not in the guidebooks on purpose, perhaps
because it was a hold-over from Pai's previous era as a pot-smoking
hippie town. We did, however, eventually find several horses around
their property, dispelling some of my suspicions. Who knows. We went
up the trail Robert found, which I said before, was the river.
We tromped up the river (Sorry, Riverbed.) until we found a real trail
that meandered from side to side of the river. This was much better
than walking in the water. We surprised a forest monk doing his
laundry in the stream. I thought the monk was going to kill Robert
when he called hello; the guy's face contorted into a dark grimace.
Luckily, he was a monk, so we were quickly forgiven for intruding. We
knew he was a monk because all of the clothes on the line were orange,
red or golden - monk colors. (so in truth, he might just shop at the
same stores as monks...)
This is several days old at this point so I am going to speed up the retelling.
Beautiful jungle hike. Had to turn around so we wouldn't have to hike
in the dark without torches. Got stalked by a free-ranging forest
horse. Found the well-traversed trail on the way home, no more river
walking or monk disturbing. Saw a big snake. Yelled. Robert didn't see
it. Tried to post a picture of it in it's hiding place, but It was a
good hider. So. Hungry. Food. And ice cream. Showers. Dinner at the
"northern Thai foods" restaurant - split a fried red snapper, pretty
tasty for something with a mother. (sorry, fish.) Found the book store
even though it is misplaced on the map. Vow to never again buy an old
guide book, not worth it. Running out of room on our camera's memory
card - delete some bad pictures. Sleep.
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