Ok, so I got stuck. From what I can tell, it is very easy to in Pai. But tonight I'm off up north to Chang Kong and then my 2 week journey down the Mekong begins. I'm hoping there will be some water...
My jungle trek was good, if a little hot. With all this burning going on, the air is hazy and smoky and we passed great expanses of forest that lay scorched and smouldering.
Perhaps the best element of the trip was our porter Tu. A member of the Karen Hill Tribe, he was fascinated and hugely entertained by us hot, sweaty westerners labouring solemnly up hills in the midday heat. He would scurry ahead singing and chuckling to himself, climb trees, stop every so often to carry a bag or merrily haul a lardy woman up a hill or listen to an ear of an ipod and sing loudly and uncomprehendingly to Radiohead. The other Karen people crept around us silently as we sat in their huts, bringing food and hopefully laying out woven cloth, just in case we felt inclined to get our wallets out.
They actually originate from Burma and have been living as illegal immigrants in Thailand for several decades. Their main source of income was opium but now they grow less profitable garlic and ginger and allow tourists to come and gawp at them. Some of the Karen people still extend their necks with golden rings but we did not go and see them. They had abandoned the rather damaging tradition some time ago but troops of tourists coming to take photos of them prompted them to take it up again, mutilating their children in the process. Consequently it is a little un-PC to go and visit them now.
We spent a restless night in a farm sleeping above a family of pigs and chickens. The roosters seemed to have no concept of time and kicked off at 2am amid groans from the sleepers above them.
The rest of my time has been spent in and around Pai, setting off again on a quest to find that bloody waterfall, only to end up attempting off road on a moped, which is not easy. I have a couple of scratches and a huge sense of achievement to show from our little excursion.
Right, well I think the pool is calling me... Ah the trials of travelling, better shake out of my comfort zone again I think.