Shortcut to a Lahu Celebration

Jason uses our physical mailing address. He has had some problems with post deliveries to his farm. The last time he was at our house he picked up his accumulated mail, but about an hour after he left, the letter he was waiting for, was delivered.

While he was visiting, he told us about a couple of nice rides from San Sai up to Phrao. One he hadn't taken yet, is almost a straight shot up through a national park in the mountains. A few years ago, this route required taking a ferry across the Mae Kuang reservoir. More recently they built a bridge and may have discontinued the ferry. The ferry landing still shows up on Google Maps and there were people at the landing when I went past.

This is the fourth month of the emergency decree due to covid-19. There hasn't been a community transmission in Thailand in a month. Quite a different situation here than in the US, where it is out of control. I haven't traveled farther than Chiang Mai since Sam and Kat were here at the end of February. I was ready for a road trip with the benefit of delivering the mail to Jason.

Jason's information, from a friend, was that the route past Mae Kuang dam would be paved all the way. That turned out to be fake news 555. Once I arrived at the old ferry landing, I entered the national park and drove on a well maintained dirt road until I came to the new Wild Beauty bridge.

The information Jason had, was that it was a one lane bridge for pedestrian and motor bikes only. In fact it was two suspension bridges in parallel and four wheeled vehicles had clearly gone across. There was a sign showing that pedestrians or bicycles were specifically allowed.

At the edge of the bridge there are food food vendors. I didn't see anyone in uniform to ask. I also didn't see any sign that would indicate cars and motorcycles were not allowed, so I went across.

Heading west across the bridge

View down to the ferry landing

Another view down the channel from the bridge.

Looking north to the parallel bridge for the east bound lane.

The national park road. At this point it was easy riding, but that didn't last long.

After the bridge, there were some really nice mountain views. I was unable to completely enjoy them because the road deteriorated. It became more steep and there were big washboards on the inclines including a lot of loose gravel. I was going very slow and carefully. Even so, the air pump I keep tied to the cargo rack, fell off from the vibrations while going down a steep descent. In fact, too steep to park the bike and walk back up to retrieve it. I got back up the hill with the bike and held the pump between my legs for the rest of the 'scary' part of the ride.

I was riding through burned out parts of the forest. Many motorcycles were parked on the side of the road. I know they were up there picking the wild mushrooms that they burned the forest for. Looks like the fires during smoky season won't be stopping anytime soon.

The road did improve after about 5 km. Then it became a road with dirt and pavement in zones. Dirt for a while, then a little pavement, then back to dirt. Eventually I got to 4031 and then it was a beautiful ride. I think if you can still take the ferry it would have taken me to the start of 4031 and might have been a more comfortable ride. I'll check it out next time.

National park flags and Thailand's national flags stretched for many kilometers.

The jungle is comprised of a clumping bamboo species through much of the park.

Finally, I got to the familiar highway 1001, which is the main highway to Phrao from Chiang Mai. I was well into the mountains by now about 40 km from Jason's ranch.

The rest of the ride was uneventful. I got to his place after an elapsed 2.5 hour trip which is about 45 minutes longer than expected. My stops to take pictures and very slow progress on in the park accounted for the extra time.

When I got to farm, Jason was cutting the grass. I took the opportunity to walk around and take some pictures and then took a nap for a couple of hours.

Jason keeps improving the bungalow. He's had it rented a couple of times. Cheryl and Jerry's house is rented to a Chinese woman and her son Jeremy. They are staying at the house until August 1st when schools are expected to reopen for the boy. When they move out, an American guy who is building a house in Phrao on land he already has leased, will move in. It's nice for Jason to have continuous rent coming in.

Jeremy, who is six, really likes to talk and speaks fluent English. In the few minutes I was with him, he told me all about Rowan, who is his best friend. Then he suggested I do some projects to plant some more flowers. He gave me a plastic syringe I could use to inject water to the plant after I put in in the ground. Jason has no ideas where he found the plastic syringe (there is no needle involved, it just measures out cc's of liquid).

There was an incident with Tu and Jeremy, so Jason is building a new fence to separate his house from the rest of the property. He's using the bamboo that came down in a big wind this spring. The fence is beautiful. You can see part of it through the kitchen doorway of the bungalow in the pictures below.

Tu has to stay in the living room for the time being. She was happy to have a chaperone and get out for a while.

Rowan is very happy to have a little boy on the property. Jeremy can actually be too much for Rowan. Jason says he comes home sometimes to get a break.

And of course Newton and the horses are doing great.

Jason is really into his fluffy chickens and Indian Runner ducks. There were new chicks just out of the incubator and some young runners to talk to.

Finally, just some more shots of his lovely farm.

Around 5 pm I got a message from Barbara that she was getting a big storm in San Sai. I don't know if was the same one, but a few minutes later a big rain came across the valley.

It was over in just a little more than an hour. When it slowed, we headed to Red's for Khai Kap Pao before going to the Lahu housewarming. It was still drizzling rain, but we took the motorcycles because parking would be difficult at the new house with the truck.

The housewarming is for a friend that Jason has known for 10 years. Boris, of the horse ranch fame, is married to a Lahu woman. Naru, in the picture below, is part of that family. When she met Jason she was 18 years old was working with the horses. Now she and her boyfriend or husband (we're not sure) have a new house.

As you can see from the background, the house is very modern. It defies the traditional stereo type of the Lahu northern Thailand hill tribe people.

The Lahu hill tribe originally lived on the Tibetan plateau and migrated gradually to Yunnan. They probably began moving into north Thailand in the 1870s or 1880s under pressure of Chinese domination.

The housewarming had been going on all day. We came for the monks blessing and stayed for the after party.

The after party was a lot of fun. The roast pork was excellent.

Naru had two cases of Chang beer that the nine of us who stayed, were obligated to drink before going home. That ended up being around 1:30 am. Most of them had to get up at 6 am.

There were four men, four women and one lady boy so, it was a well balanced crowd. Jason said it was a much better party than many that he's attended which were just a bunch of guys sitting around drinking.

It was a very interesting and as I said, quite a sanook evening. Jason told them they had to speak English to me and I had to answer in Thai. We were all pretty shy, but between Jason and the lady boy encouraging us, we all got into it.

They also have their own language but, when they speak Thai, they speak central Thai without the northern words. It made it much easier for me to follow when they did speak Thai.

We learned the Lahu word for "thank you". It's A bo u jar (bo as boat, u as in blue). The group didn't think there was a word for hello. They said they just don't have one. They just smile and shake hands (not Wai) to their own people. Jason said what do you do when it's someone you don't like. They said they just look away 555.

I've seen on a website called Green Trails, that the Lahu may have a word for hello. It's a hello that is literally "where are you going?" It's pronounced sheyeh sa la. I'll have to ask them about that the next time.

I also learned the Thai phrase "ngu ngu phla phla" or snake snake fish fish. Jason wasn't sure but thought it meant confused. He's heard others say this in that context. Annie told me later, that it means "not 100% sure". That makes sense, if you're confused, you wouldn't be 100% sure. They laughed when the guy said it, but that could have been in context about what he wasn't 100% sure of.

The Lahu are an industrious tribe and they are doing well in the Phrao valley. Apparently buying much of the property at the edge of town and building these modern homes. One guy is a successful peach and persimmon farmer. He grows his crops at the top of the mountains. I saw pictures of his peaches and they look great. He was looking for advice from America or Europe on better persimmon growing practices. I couldn't help him there.

All of the women work in a "doll factory". Their tribe makes string dolls for export. There is an American couple, former backpackers, that buy the dolls for resale in South Carolina. The dolls aren't particularly Thai, but include things like Halloween characters and many kinds of animals. Everything is made of string. We went to the factory the next day for coffee and to see what it was about.

That's Keaw working at the "factory". She was in the picture above directly across from me. They have three factories around the country and it is a moneymaker for the tribe.

The trip home was relatively uneventful. I took another one of Jason's shortcuts that was a paved two lane highway all the way back. It's a lovely route along a long canal. It's better because you don't have any traffic to deal with. There is only one stoplight all the way from the ranch to our house.

The next day, I got a call from Annie asking me to come over because her toilet wasn't flushing. I made a temporary repair, but we need to get parts from HomePro to fix it properly.

Annie had been shopping with her friend in Lampang the day before and brought back some fresh clean jing reed khai, which are "the halfway point between grasshoppers and full-size crickets. They still have the soft center of their maturer brothers, but they also have the lighter flavor of the grasshoppers, along with the fragrant smell of kaffir leaves they're often fried with. Thanks to their subtle taste, mini crickets are a good introduction for those who are new to eating bugs. - A Guide to Eating Insects"

Annie prepared them by boiling them in salt water with Pandan. Pandan is a lovely herb that is used to flavor the water at the noodle house down the road from us. I agree that these little crickets were a good introduction. I thought they were delicious. although a little tedious to eat. You have to pull off the head, legs, wings and a stinger like thing coming out of the back, in order to get to the little bite of really nice taste.

We had some some nice rain recently but, also some wind to go with it. These clothes won't be getting dry anytime soon 555.

We're having issues with the gardener at the moment. Our rent includes having a gardener come to cut the grass once a month. The gardener who came last year was, during the time he was doing our gardening, quite reliable.

He was well known in our village. The family apparently left without telling anyone. They did this around the beginning of the pandemic emergency rules going into place. The family was from Myanmar and may have left Thailand to go home.

After a couple of months a new company was hired. They cut the grass one time at the start of the rainy season and never came back. We've now learned that the entire crew quit and the owner is hiring new workers who will start in July. In the mean time, we have quite a jungle going on in our back yard. Parts of the grass are almost up to my waist.

The last thing to note during this time, is our dear Wurstchen is going through a tough time. He's having issues with his liver and kidneys. We are giving him subcutaneous water injections twice daily.

The poor guy can't keep down any food or even water. The vet fears we are now dealing with pancreatitis. It's a tense time for all of us. Our vet, Dr. Rain is in constant contact with us on the Line messaging App and is giving us advice on how to care for him based on the current situation. It makes us much more comfortable with what we are doing for him. He is weak, but is still trying to be in good spirits. We hope that we can get him stabilized and back to recovery soon.

PS: Wurstchen was not to have any water from 10am until 4pm. At 4 he drank a moderate amount of water. He didn't vomit and 45 minutes later he asked to go out. That's a victory in our efforts to get him back to health. He's been unable to keep even water down for the past two days.