Trekking

Pete and I on the morning of our first day. The fog rolls in every night now days.
Sheila and I a few ours on. Still doing pretty well despite the fact that the trail we were following for the first couple hours was actually just a stream!
We weren't really as lost as it looks, but it did take us quite a while to figure out where we were. Good thing our guide (my neighbor Sa-oo) was able to yell some Karen through the woods and find some people to show us the way!
We ended up in the middle of the rice field that was cut out of the forest.

Sheila and Pete rest their tired legs after many hours of hiking up and down mountains. This is the first village we stayed in.

Sa-oo visited with his family members while we complained about how bad our legs hurt!

Here the three of us are enjoying the early morning on our second day. The field behind us is rice. I can't imagine having to harvest that!
Sa-oo is a pretty small guy but that doesn't discount the fact that we had on big packs. The views are unbeatable!

This is a typical Karen house in the mountains of Northern Thailand

Another rice field in the river valley. This is the perfect season for this hike!

This bridge was a lot more sturdy than it looked. We took a rest at this river and actually got to bathe for the first time in two days. It was pretty nice.

This was one of the largest stand of bamboo I have seen.

We arrived at a village that had no more than five houses. We sat there and ate pomelo, drank Karen tea and chatted with the few people who could speak Thai.

We soon attracted the whole village. I'm pretty sure random farangs don't show up at their village all that often!

Our second night we arrived at this beautiful mountain lake. We decided to camp instead of stay with a family. We were quite the celebrities there as well and we had about 10 girls help us set up our camp.

The lake in the early morning was truly amazing. It was pretty cold and there was steam coming off the lake. I could think of anything better to wake up to!

It was amazing!

Traditional Karen houses all have fires inside to cook over. They have no chimneys so the inside of the roof is covered in thick black soot. The smoke just seeps out of the roof as you can see here.

Just another amazing view during our hike.

We made it down and we were exhausted. In order to develop this into a tourist trip another day would surely have to be added. It was a grueling trip, but one I will never forget!