Day 3 began like any other day, with roosters crowing. However, we had already begun to adapt to their cockadoodling, and managed to sleep until 7 o’clock. We were told that we’d be hitting the jungle for more wood before breakfast, so we threw back on our muddy, soaking wet clothes from the day before, and went outside. Fun fact: Clothes don’t dry in the rainforest.
Luckily, plans changed, and we got to eat before heading out. Which was a life saver considering what happened next.
The path through the forest was worse than the day before, the rains having washed it out even more. We made our way deep into the forest, to the point that the path disappeared.
![]()
There we began to cut down bamboo as wide as a telephone pole, and much taller. It took the combined efforts of Chris, Josh, Dr. MN, and myself to move each piece further down the hill so it could be cut to size, and 2 to 3 people each to move them. By the time that we got to the last piece we needed, only Dr. MN and myself were left. As we pushed the bamboo out onto the hill, it suddenly came loose from the branches it was tangled in above us, which resulted in me being knocked 2 meters downhill and Dr. MN getting pinned beneath the tree. Luckily, we were both fine, I crawled back uphill, he extricated himself, and we cut the tree to size.
We then had two more obstacles to getting back. First it began to rain. This washed out the already treacherous path, and soaked us both. We realized we had to move quickly or the steps that we had dug into the hillside would be washed out, and getting back with our bamboo would be impossible. Then, we realized that Greg G. had taken the second machete case back to the village with him, so we would have to move the bamboo while carrying an unsheathed blade meant to cut through trees, all while sliding downhill and tripping on mud. I wish I had photos of this to show you. We soldiered through though, and we tripped, slipped, and crawled our way back with our 12 foot long bamboo shaft in hand.
When we got out of the forest, finally, we met up with the rest of the team, the sun came out, and Chris and Josh helped us lug the bamboo back to the village. It was glorious.
After we got back, it was announced that Greg B. would be leaving that day to head back to Texas. He needed to get back to Chang Mai, and so we decided that we would leave the village: Dr. MN would drive Greg B., and we would hike back to base camp. We were ready to go at about 1130 AM, but decided we wanted to check out the nearby waterfall, which was about 1 km away. We agreed that we would meet back up with Dr. MN at base and parted ways, wishing Greg B. luck in his future in medical school.
Our trek began with a steep descent from the village, down a grassy hill, and into a smaller village along a, thankfully, paved road.
![]()
The road continued through a valley, with tea growing on either side.
![]()
We started to get further and further from the village, and the sides of the path started to fill up with banana trees, wild vines, and all sorts of other familiar rainforest vegetation. Finally, the path turned to dirt, and we started to ascend to the falls. Climbing up, sometimes crawling up, we made it to the falls. Josh was kind enough to take a photo. TUSM represent.
![]()
Greg does not like mosquitos.
We weren’t done though. The falls started a good number of meters further up, so up we went.
![]()
It turned out to be a big waterfall.
![]()
Greg decided to leave before us because he realized he’d taken the key to the lock for our hut, and needed to return it. Sans Greg, we began to head further up the falls, and reached a rickety wooden bridge. We decided at that point that to head further up would mean snaking through thick jungle, and decided to head back.
![]()
We made our way back down the mossy, rocky hillside, through the village, and down the road. We intended to meet up with Greg at the intersection between our road, and the road to the Lisu Village. He was a no show though, and when we went to find him in the village, it turned out that he had been there and left. With no way of contacting Greg, we decided we’d have to hope that we’d meet with him on the path back, and we turned to head back to the base camp.
The walk back to camp was much more pleasant than the walk to the village, since it was now mostly downhill. As we got closer to Chiang Mai, we started to get more concerned about Greg. That is, until he came flying up behind us in the back of a blue pick-up truck. I’ll save the story for Greg to tell in his blog, but needless to say, we were all very relieved, and the family he was with offered to drive us the rest of the way to town. We were so happy, we took this photo of Greg.
We were beyond elated when we got back to Dr. MN’s camp. We finally got a chance to wash the mud, sweat, and rain out of our clothes, and even got a chance to see Greg B. off properly, as he had still not left.
We spent the rest of the afternoon getting our affairs in order, eating, cleaning ourselves and our clothes, and off-loading photos and video to my laptop. We even got to have our first cup of coffee in days, so you know spirits were high.
Dr. MN let us know then that we would be heading into town for the Weekend Market, so we got ourselves together, jumped into the bed of his pickup, and off we went. Along the way, we saw this sick clock.
![]()
The market was a mishmash of all sorts of fantastic sights and sounds.
![]()
Vendors hawked dolls made of yarn, hand crafted baskets, and an array of unique cultural food stuffs from brightly colored candies to roasted crickets, all under multicolored glowing neon lanterns. And about the crickets: you know we had to try some.
![]()
In my opinion, they tasted like shrimp poppers.
The rest of the photos from that night were pretty fantastic, and I can’t even choose which to put up here, so take my word and go through Ilacqua’s album when you get the chance, it should be up by now.
We finally finished up, weathered a sudden monsoon blast, and headed back to base camp. We’re picking up a new recruit tomorrow at around 10 AM, then heading to another village.
Luckily, plans changed, and we got to eat before heading out. Which was a life saver considering what happened next.
The path through the forest was worse than the day before, the rains having washed it out even more. We made our way deep into the forest, to the point that the path disappeared.
There we began to cut down bamboo as wide as a telephone pole, and much taller. It took the combined efforts of Chris, Josh, Dr. MN, and myself to move each piece further down the hill so it could be cut to size, and 2 to 3 people each to move them. By the time that we got to the last piece we needed, only Dr. MN and myself were left. As we pushed the bamboo out onto the hill, it suddenly came loose from the branches it was tangled in above us, which resulted in me being knocked 2 meters downhill and Dr. MN getting pinned beneath the tree. Luckily, we were both fine, I crawled back uphill, he extricated himself, and we cut the tree to size.
We then had two more obstacles to getting back. First it began to rain. This washed out the already treacherous path, and soaked us both. We realized we had to move quickly or the steps that we had dug into the hillside would be washed out, and getting back with our bamboo would be impossible. Then, we realized that Greg G. had taken the second machete case back to the village with him, so we would have to move the bamboo while carrying an unsheathed blade meant to cut through trees, all while sliding downhill and tripping on mud. I wish I had photos of this to show you. We soldiered through though, and we tripped, slipped, and crawled our way back with our 12 foot long bamboo shaft in hand.
When we got out of the forest, finally, we met up with the rest of the team, the sun came out, and Chris and Josh helped us lug the bamboo back to the village. It was glorious.
After we got back, it was announced that Greg B. would be leaving that day to head back to Texas. He needed to get back to Chang Mai, and so we decided that we would leave the village: Dr. MN would drive Greg B., and we would hike back to base camp. We were ready to go at about 1130 AM, but decided we wanted to check out the nearby waterfall, which was about 1 km away. We agreed that we would meet back up with Dr. MN at base and parted ways, wishing Greg B. luck in his future in medical school.
Our trek began with a steep descent from the village, down a grassy hill, and into a smaller village along a, thankfully, paved road.
The road continued through a valley, with tea growing on either side.
We started to get further and further from the village, and the sides of the path started to fill up with banana trees, wild vines, and all sorts of other familiar rainforest vegetation. Finally, the path turned to dirt, and we started to ascend to the falls. Climbing up, sometimes crawling up, we made it to the falls. Josh was kind enough to take a photo. TUSM represent.
Greg does not like mosquitos.
We weren’t done though. The falls started a good number of meters further up, so up we went.
It turned out to be a big waterfall.
Greg decided to leave before us because he realized he’d taken the key to the lock for our hut, and needed to return it. Sans Greg, we began to head further up the falls, and reached a rickety wooden bridge. We decided at that point that to head further up would mean snaking through thick jungle, and decided to head back.
The walk back to camp was much more pleasant than the walk to the village, since it was now mostly downhill. As we got closer to Chiang Mai, we started to get more concerned about Greg. That is, until he came flying up behind us in the back of a blue pick-up truck. I’ll save the story for Greg to tell in his blog, but needless to say, we were all very relieved, and the family he was with offered to drive us the rest of the way to town. We were so happy, we took this photo of Greg.
We were beyond elated when we got back to Dr. MN’s camp. We finally got a chance to wash the mud, sweat, and rain out of our clothes, and even got a chance to see Greg B. off properly, as he had still not left.
We spent the rest of the afternoon getting our affairs in order, eating, cleaning ourselves and our clothes, and off-loading photos and video to my laptop. We even got to have our first cup of coffee in days, so you know spirits were high.
Dr. MN let us know then that we would be heading into town for the Weekend Market, so we got ourselves together, jumped into the bed of his pickup, and off we went. Along the way, we saw this sick clock.
The market was a mishmash of all sorts of fantastic sights and sounds.
Vendors hawked dolls made of yarn, hand crafted baskets, and an array of unique cultural food stuffs from brightly colored candies to roasted crickets, all under multicolored glowing neon lanterns. And about the crickets: you know we had to try some.
In my opinion, they tasted like shrimp poppers.
The rest of the photos from that night were pretty fantastic, and I can’t even choose which to put up here, so take my word and go through Ilacqua’s album when you get the chance, it should be up by now.
We finally finished up, weathered a sudden monsoon blast, and headed back to base camp. We’re picking up a new recruit tomorrow at around 10 AM, then heading to another village.
No comments:
Post a Comment