Phulankga: outside at last!

Well, due to the hectic nature of our schedule and traveling to a new place every few days, I am "behind" on postings, so it goes. So, the events I will write about in this post occurred a week back. After Lampang, we traveled north and east to Phayao (pah-yow). While there, we visited a public school where the students all are from "hill tribes," generally the Hmong, and most of the students board at the school because the school is too far from their villages to go back and forth each day. We had a lovely, short stay and took some great pics of the kids in traditional garb and playing games, at least one pic is up at: www.flickr.com/photos/sawtooth

Then, we drove up to Phulnakga National Forest (I think that's the name, not in my books) and stayed in some cabins. While not camping, it is the closest to it we have come--or will come--in our month's stay and the rest of my team (save my partner in crime, Jamie) wasn't particularly happy with even this one night. Admittedly, the beds and blankets were of very questionable cleanliness! The bathrooms weren't particularly clean and were of the porcelain "squat" variety; prior to the trip, there was a lot of concern about this sort of plumbing but, as it has turned out, we either stay in homes of wealthy Thai people (generally) or in hotels, all of which have "Western" toilets. And there were bugs a'plenty. We mostly hung out in a bungalow with no walls and ate dinner, drank, hung out, etc. After drinking shots of Thai whiskey, especially good with tea, some homemade, local, clear "rice whiskey" appeared and Jamie and I partook of a few rounds with four forest workers. It would've been nice to have had more in-depth conversations with our drinking buddies but there was no common language for us to talk in, I'm afraid.

The next morn, well before sunrise, we awoke and drove up a really steep 4WD road to a trailhead for our one hike of the trip, to the summit of a little 1700m mountain that might be called Doi Phulankga. The whole area is lush and green. We might have walked 1.5km, not sure, to a neat ridgeline that came to a point, of sorts. Our first Thai peak! Most of us made it to the top. Alas, due to the haze in the air, common given the high level of humidity in the air, the views were most reminiscent, to me, of the Blue Ridge Mountains of NC and Virginia.

I look forward to more hiking after our Rotary month is up, most likely in the South near Krabi.