View from Ban Jabo

A lot happened over these past five days in the hill tribes. I'm going to start from the beginning. The bus ride to Ban Jabo was about 7 hours long. We stopped on the outskirts of Pai on the Pai River and bamboo rafted to Pai. Bamboo raft was really fun. The river was really small but it was great relaxing on a bamboo raft with everyone. I was on a raft with Stan, Jin, and Ollie.

Bamboo rafting

 Then once we got to Pai we ate lunch. Pai is a really relaxed city about 3 hours by bus north of Chiang Mai. It is the reggae-town of Thailand. I was excited to go to Pai cause I hadn't been there yet and really to check it out. I think I'll return to Pai eventually because it's a pretty cool city. Then we departed from Pai and took the long and windy road (Beatles reference) over a mountain to Ban Jabo. It was about 4 hours. Supposedly there was 3,000 curves in total. But luckily I took a Tylenol PM so I was asleep.

Like I already said before, Ban Jabo is in the hills of northeastern Thailand right on the border with Burma. The border to Burma was walking distance from Ban Jabo, about 2 kilometers away.  The view was beautiful. The villagers were excited to have visitors and were very hospitable.

Once we arrived to Ban Jabo we met our host families and went to put our belongings in their house. The host families were great. They were a great part of the experience. Even though no one spoke Lahu, we communicated through sign language. It was actually pretty surprising how much you are able to relay through hang language. We had some pretty long conversations with out host families. Also our host mom spoke a little Thai and Thomas also spoke some Thai. Our host family's house was completely wooden with a bath house outside. The bathrooms  consisted of Asian toilets, and buckets of water that you use to shower with. This took the most adapting to.

Our house

We gave English lessons at the local school. Here's a picture of the kids:

Peace

Posin' like a gangsta' for us.

Jin, Stan, and I

 The lessons were great. We taught them fruit: apple, strawberry, banana, melon... and animals: rabbit, dog, cat. Then we played interactive games. It was actually really fun teaching them. They were energetic and lively once we got them interested. Unfortunately there is a sad story about the school. The government gives the school a annual salary to buy computers, books, and school supplies. But the principle of the school hoards the money and keeps it for himself. Apparently he drives a nice car to school everyday which is very unfair. It was too bad to learn about this. It made me sad for these kids.

There were a lot of wild animals in the area. You had roosters, pigs, dogs, cats, and cows. All the animals were stray and wondered around aimlessly all day.  The roosters promptly woke us up at 5 am every morning.

Every morning after being awakened by the roosters, instead of going back to sleep I got up and read on the porch of our house. Usually our host grandpa was on the porch cutting bamboo. He signaled to me that he didn't like reading and then started laughing. The noises of him slicing bamboo with his huge hatchet mixed with the sounds of the animals were definitely rememberable. He was a pretty crazy guy. I wish I had a picture of him because he was also cool looking. He was short and old and had a long gray goatee. The noises of him slicing bamboo with a huge hatchet mixed with the sounds of the animals were rememberable.

For some reason I expected the villagers to be tradition based but they were more community based. They had some tradition but they were more focused on the community. Meals were like a huge co-op in our host family's house. They had friends over to eat everyday.

We had a lot of relax time during the day. Pretty much after our main activity which usually ended around 5 we had free time for the rest of the night. Everyone didn't know what to do with all the chill time. Lilly and I were among the few who knew how to just hang out and relax without getting bored. Some of our friends couldn't freaking sit still for more than five minutes. 

The village was one road with houses on either side. It was extremely small. The lower village was a lot bigger. Our village had more of a community feel because of its small size. All the villagers were interwound in each others' lives. 

Old villager. This guy was 99 years old and still in perfect shape

From Left: Risa, Thomas, Lilly, and Stanley 

(I was taking the picture) 

   This was from our hike to Coffin Cave.