The Trek Part 6: The 'Hotel California'

Our hotel was a 3 bedroom house, with a large porch and outdoor dinning room. It was undoubtedly constructed as a place for trekkers to stay. There was a kitchen and bathrooms in separate buildings. The family that owned the building lived on the ground floor and all of the accommodations for us were located above them.

The large porch and outdoor kitchen were staples of any village home. The porch was where shoes were removed before stepping into the ‘dinning room’ which was merely an open area with a bamboo mat where we sat to eat. The bedrooms were down the hall (Note, the bedrooms were the only real rooms, the rest was open to the elements, and the only difference between the ‘porch’ and the ‘dinning room’ was that the dinning room was a step up and covered by the roof.) and consisted of hard mattresses with mosquito nets over them.

The bathrooms were out the ‘back door’. They were two outhouses, with a oil drum full of water, with a bucket floating in it, and a western style toilet. The toilet was flushed by scooping water into it. You showered by scooping water over yourself.

When we arrived, we climbed the stairs and sat down on the porch to admire the village. There were chickens squaking about, people passing on the road, and Water buffalo lounging around. There were also 2 cats and their kittens, who were also residents of the place we were staying. A cooler near our dining area had soda, water and beer for sale, with a notepad to write down how much you took. Needless to say we all went for the water.

As we relaxed some young girls, ostensibly sent by their mothers, came to sell us ‘traditional tribal crafts’. They looked strangely like any crafts we see in the market. Jennifer made the mistake of looking at them for more than a split second and was swarmed by 4 or 5 little girls, all selling the same things, but making it known that they didn’t share profits. Eventually we got them to leave, but it took quite a bit. The goods were overpriced, as one may expect. Meanwhile Ar went to cook us dinner.

After a short bit he came out with spring rolls with sweet spicy sauce as an appetizer. They were greasy as a fastfood burger, and tasted even better. A little later, and we were getting settled the bowls of rice appeared on our ‘dinning room table’ and we all went to sit on the floor. The food was plentiful and delicious. The leftovers would be given back to our hosts, which if they didn’t need them would give them to the animals. The cats begged for the food, but we didn’t concede more than a few grains of rice to them.
As the sun set while we ate there were no lights to turn on. Out came the candles, that were put on top of empty soda cans to light our evening. After walking for the day, and with no remedy to the darkness that seemed to encase us fatigue started to wash over me.

When all the dishes were cleared away Ar came back out (he had eaten with the family and snacked while cooking) and gave us a lesson on the village. We were staying in a White Karen village, one of the 4 different Karen tribes. This village was quite prosperous, with a school and a church. Yes, that’s right, a church, not a Wat. Ar told us that a monk once passed through the village and converted most of them to Buddism, but having no money, he wasn’t able to give them a Wat. Then when the Christian missionaries came through they had the money for a small church, so the people converted to that.
The village is prosperous because of a deal that they made with the Thai government. The Karen, who are all formerly from Burma, prospered with their opium farming. The government, in exchange for them to cease farming the poppies, taught them how to farm other cash crops and built them a school. At the school they teach the basic subjects, plus skills that are unique to village life, such as foraging in the mountain forests. There is also one teacher, who is also an army officer. It is his job to make sure that no one in the village is in the opium trade. Because it is the only village in the area with a school, the school serves as a weekly boarding house for all of the children form neighboring villages that attend there.
After the little history lesson Ar brought out his guitar, and started playing us almost all of Green Days singles. Song returned to join us. We sang late into the night…or at least it felt that way in the darkness, but it was undoubtedly before midnight when most of us hit the hay.