Prologue

Phu Kra Dueng trip: Dec 25^th-Dec 29^th 07

BBA 4^th Camp: Dec 25^th 07 – Jan 5^th 08

Early Dec: decided to go to BBA camp as I had been to PKD before

A week after: PKD then camp as some good friends were going to PKD and I had a friend to travel with me from PKD to the camp in Lampang

A week after that week: a ticket to PKD had been purchased but no company to travel with me from PKD to the camp

Two days before Christmas: very confused of what to do, called all possible sources for info in going form PKD, Loei to Baan Na Mai, Lampang

A day before Christmas: still very confused and remained indecisive, called roonnong (referred to students in the class year below mine) and heard that there was transportation from Lampang city to Baan Na Mai on Dec 29^th …still no friend to accompany me from PKD to Lampang

Christmas day: finally a decision had been made; I was going to the camp. Still, I took the bus ticket to PKD with me when I left my grandma’s.

Day 1: Christmas Day (Dec 25^th 07)

I had been packing all day for the camp. I was nervous as I had never been to a volunteer camp before. I packed all things I thought will be useful during my stay in a very remote village of Lampang. A bus would leave from my uni at 1900.

At 1800, I left my grandma’s for uni. While I was walking to the bus stop, I called one of my friends who was going to PKD to confirm that I was not going with them. She talked me into reconsidering my decision. Unfortunately I did. When I was at the bus stop waiting for a bus to uni, I called my roonnong again about the transportation from Lampang city to the village. When I was sure that I would definitely have a means of getting to the camp, I walked to the nearby skytrain to take it to the bus station. The journey wouldn’t be that tough; I just had to leave PKD a day earlier than my friends had to, walked down the mountain on my own, and commute from PKD to Lampang alone. That was it. Also, it would be the adventures of my life and I couldn’t resist the thought of it. I could make it! I knew I could.

Day 2: PKD here we come!!! (Dec 26^th 07)

We arrived early in the morning at Pha Nok Khao. There we took a short rest (washed faces, brushed teeth, ate breakfast) before taking a ‘song theaw’ (you guys’ll see from the photos what it looks like) to PKD.

We took roughly around 4-5 hours to get from the bottom to the top (almost 6 km) and then walked about 3 km to our camping ground.

Here’s the map of PKD (on the mountain top)

We had to trek vertically 5.5 km and horizontally 3.3 km to get to our accommodation.

These are photos we took along the way:

before our long walk...everybody looked great

the carriers...they were super!!!

posting along the way

our first resting place

1st km

3rd km

half way there!

our last 'Sam'

almost there

5th km

accomplished!!!...still...we had to walk another 3.3 km to the visitor center...

in need of food real bad...

We met up with another group at Pha Makdook to watch the sunset together. There, I convinced Shaw (the one who supposed to accompany me to Lampang) to travel with me to Lampang as we’d get mutual benefit (we both accompany one another to Lampang and then he could take another bus to Chaing Mai which was only an hour away). He considered the deal and accepted it. Woohoo!!!

On our way back...

Day 3: long walk to Pha Lomsak (Dec 27^th 07)

It was so cold at night and in the morning. So all of us did it the western style; not taking a shower in the morning. Shaw moved in to our cabin as his group would leave PKD on this day. We left our accommodation around 1100 for Lomsak cliff. We walked along a trail and got to the cliff around 1400-ish.

We chilled out there (and slept) for a while before the time came.

Unfortunately, it was so cloudy on that day we could hardly see the sun set. After that we took another trail back to our hut. It was dark and quiet, so all of us sang songs while we were walking back. We shouldn’t have done that but singing really helped us. For the last walking path before we reached our camping ground, we took only 25 minutes to walk about 2.2 km. We were super!!!

After we took a shower, we sat down and had a chat. It was a good chat. We talked until about 2 am then dispersed to bed. So the plan to watch the sun rises in the morning was postponed to the next morning. And I was going to miss it. Anw, I had a chance to watch it when I was here about 3-4 years ago.

Day 4: Getting to Lampang (Dec 28^th 07)

I woke up early in the morning to pack my stuff as I had to leave today. Shaw and I waved goodbye to the rest. Bell, one of my friends I hardly talk to in uni said ‘nice to know you’. We really gotta know each other more during the trip. And I would have regretted not coming to PKD with them.

We trekked down the mountain. It took us about 3.30 hours.

Here's a son of a carrier. He was carrying a 7 kg backpack and he walked down with us almost half of the way.

We took a bus from Pha Nok Khao to Chumpae, Khonkean to take another bus to Lampang.

While we were at Chumpae...

Our bus was yet to be here.

We boarded the bus at 2000.

On the way, the bus passed this intersection called ‘Indochina’. The sign pointing towards the South called ‘Kuala Lumpur’. The sign pointing towards the West called ‘Rangoon’. I’m not sure about the East and the North though but I think they were ‘Hanoi’ and ‘Laung Prabang’ respectively. Cool!

Day 5: Wandering around Lampang (Dec 29^th 07)

We reached Lampang early in the morning. We just sat at the bus station until the morning broke. I got a massage from P’Aim (my roon p’ who was supposed to travel to Na Mai with me) that someone would pick us up around noon and Shaw had to wait for his friend to pick him up. So we ate breakfast at a stall nearby, walked around a bit. Then we decided to take a horse carriage as the province was famous for this and we had nothing else to do.

arriving early at Lampang bus station

waited until the Sun came up

walked to the horse carriage station

took the horse carriage around

Shaw wanted to drink the specialty Northern-only coffee here before we walked back to the bus station.

When we came back, we met up with P’Aim and his brother Aom. Not long after that Shaw’s friend arrived. And P’Aim, Aom, and I dispersed around the area as the car would pick us up around 2.

P’Aim called me around noon to tell me that the transportation had arrived. I was quite amazed to see that it was a small, old sedan. To be honest, I expected a pick-up truck as I imagined Baan Na Mai to be a remote village up in a mountain. I doubted this vehicle’s ability to take us there. Moreover, I was puzzled that the car didn’t take us out of the city but to a provincial stadium. P’ Aim made a phone call to a lady who was supposed to fetch us and let her talk to the driver. Later at the stadium when we had met P’Kae (the lady), we found out it was a miscommunication and just a mere coincident. The driver was someone P’Aim’s dad sent to take all of us from the bus station (without him knowing) and it was a perfect coincident that we were waiting for P’Kae’s bf there too. The driver was just there first.

Since we were at the stadium and there were a ‘winter’ fair there, we walked around and checked it out as P’Kae bf had yet to be there.

When he arrived, it was time for us to head to our destination, Baan Na Mai.

I was assigned to stay at house no.14 with other 3 juniors; Thip, Win, and Sali.

At night, we all sat around the fire and enjoyed activities for campers.

Almost forget, the family cooked boa for dinner today. Dad caught it in the forest. Its flesh was just like fish but it tasted like chicken + fish to me. Yummy though.

Day 6: Maid in Baan Na Mai (Dec 30^th 07)

My task today was to prepare meals, along with my group mates for campers. I didn’t cook at all ‘cos there were so many pple willing to do the job. So I was content with doing errands and washing dishes and utensils. I had to wake up at 5 to help out with the job. Anw, it was fun.

funny photo...I like =)

These were campers who were on building duty.

Day 7: Brewing Alcohol (Dec 31th 07)

It was our group turn to get to know the villagers. The activity for the day was making local alcohol. I dun wanna say much here. I think you know why (hint:iiirrraaa =P). We talked a lot to them and we learned a lot from them. We even touched the fragile issue, politic. We saw their (actually there were only 2 villagers) perspectives and all.

walking into the forest

where the brewing was done

the stream nearby

the ingredients: glutinous rice, water and some flour ball...leave them for two weeks...then you'd get this...

brewing...

In the afternoon, we talked to the rubbish. We went around the village to pick up trash. Most of them were sweet wrappers and snack packages. Damn! These kids gotta learn how to throw garbage into the dustbins.

The kids asked me to catch fish with them. They enjoyed it so much. They did it for pleasure and food (more like snack for them). Then I got wet so I just took a bath in the stream. What an experience!

'leam' for catching fish

jacuzzi...= )

At night, we did activities for campers. Tonight we played the mirror game. Campers sat in a circle and we passed our camp handbooks around. There was a different question for each round. Let say the conductor of the game asks us to pass the handbooks to our left for 8 times. Then when it stops, we see whose handbook is passed to us. If the question was what TV character the owner of the handbook should be. We have to answer accordingly. I dunno I explain it clearly but the downside for this game for me at that time was I didn’t really many of the campers there (I was the only fourth year there at that time).

Suddenly somebody pointed out that it was almost time for the countdown. Then Aom said that it was only 10 seconds left on his watch. Everybody was then counting down to the New Year. When we were done, many people were wondering why we had to follow Aom’s watch. One girl said that it was still 1150 on her watch. Another girl said it was 1157 on hers. Anw, we were done with the countdown so we didn’t redo again. =)

We spent the night at the school. It was freaking cold. My whole body was hiding in my sleeping bag of 12 years and another two blankets. I wanted to go back to my home to sleep (all my housemates agreed) but it was too late into the night and our house was almost the last one in the village. Also, everybody was there.

Day 8: New Year (Jan 1^st 08)

The work for us started at one. However, those who were on cooking duty had to begin a bit earlier. Building was the task for my group today. However, we didn’t get to really build anything as the villagers who were supposed to help us were all drunk. All we did was just moved the earth to fill the playground area. That was all. Damn! I expected the harder job. Anw, it was understandable as this day was the New Year day. Each and every one of us needed a break.

Day 9: Green Hands (Jan 2^nd 08)

Didn’t do much today except making the field ready for planting veggies. Also, I didn’t remember the details for today much.

Oh! At night, we separated into small groups to talk about our experiences on whichever topics we liked to discuss and share. After a while, my group ended up talking about out high school times. I apparently had the least fun experience during high school. I think you guys know why. =)

Day 10: Inexperienced Teachers (Jan 3^rd 08)

Teaching!? I had no clue on what I was going to teach. Fortunately, one of the roonnong came up with what to teach for the kids at the diff levels. I was assigned to primary 3 with another roonnong. Honestly, I was bad. Moreover, the kids wanted to play with us instead of learning. I succumbed to their request (they wouldn’t listen to me teaching anw…so I went with the flow).

In the afternoon, we did Paper Mache. They were so interested at first but the excitement ran low real quick. They couldn’t do it so they just left newspapers lying around. Seeing that, we wanted to them the old ‘when there’s a will, there’s a way’. It failed. After they saw our end-products, they just asked them from us. We were like “NO! You have to do it yourself.” Nevertheless, we found our paper dolls missing from their whereabouts…ummmmmm…

At night, we had another serious game. Again we divided into small group of 4 but this time we had to draw graphs of our lives, showing the lowest point and highest point. Basically, we had to take turn to describe our low and high points. My lowest point was obviously my J2 time. However, if that didn’t happen, I would have never known my 3 good friends. And do you guys wanna guess my high point? Hahaha, it was when I went on exchange in Canada, seeing the world outside Asia. Damn. I loved it so much…full of wonderful experiences.

Day 11: Preparing our Return (Jan 4^th 08)

It was the school sports day. The kids were divided into two colors: yellow and blue. So were we. I was in a yellow team. At first I thought we would be playing with the children so I equipped myself with running shoes and other things necessary for doing sports. It turned out that we had only to play soccer against the teachers, villagers, and some of the older kids. I was a bit disappointed. Anw, I did have fun cheering for my team. In the end, they were even. Each team won two categories out of the total four.

And before the games started, there were a New Year celebration for the students. The kids would come out and perform. They were great.

Furthermore, we had to make a card/mobile for each of our houses. Thank to Sali, our house no.14 had a very nice mobile for the family. We gave it to Mom during the night after our performances for the villagers (The clips will be put on you know where soon).

Day 12: BKK Again (Jan 5^th 08)

It was time to return to the polluted and messy BKK. We gathered at the school for the departure. There were several pick-up trucks waiting to get us to our awaiting big bus. Before we left, we stood in a circle with our host families, singing a song for them. It was a very emotional moment; many of them cried. And I almost did.

The villagers had souvenirs for us. I dunno how to describe it. Each of us got a small container for holding glutinous rice (the rice was their staple food and I ate it all the time I was there). They were made by the female villagers. I think I have a clip of a lady making this. I will also put it on you know where. She was so pro. I have to tell you that.

By the way, some of the locals wanted us to visit a cave nearby before we actually left. It was not that far from the village and we have to trek up the hills. The cave was not that fascinating but it was pretty in its own way. I didn’t bring my cam with me. Hence there were no photos for this.

The journey from Lampang to BKK was very long. Thus, Aom suggested that we all should stop by at his hometown, Nakhonsawan for dinner as we had to drop him off anw. So we did. At 2030, we were at the market next to Chaophraya River. There were tons of food stalls. I myself didn’t know what to choose. In the end, Sangswang, Bon, and I went for fishball noodles. Disappointed was the word for the noodles.I didnt even finish my bowl. Then we went for one-stick-a-baht satay. I suggested we each order 20…so 60 in total. But the guys were like we all could take 100. 100!? OMG. I ate 20 sticks, Sangswang 33 and Bon 47.

The market

At 2130, the wheels rolled to BKK. We arrived at BKK around 0100-ish. I took a cab back to my grandma’s and fell to sleep.

Epilogue

Mom was so good at cooking. We ALWAYS finished her food. And whatever we wanted to eat, she would cook for us.

FYI: Mom is only 47 but she is now a great grandma. Tle is her great grandson while Kum is her grandson Kum is Tle uncle. The average age of people there getting married is 18-20…very early compared to people who reside in big cities in Thailand.

Tle called us ‘P’Sao Ple’ (P’Sao= older sister Ple=I, myself,me in Thai Northern dialect) when his toddler friends visited the house. We (the girls) were so happy.

Thanks Kum for climbing up a tamarind tree when I wanted to eat tamarind and for catching fish for us to eat.

Thanks everybody for making my year-end trips such a wonderful memory.

P.S. I may not be able to put all the photos up here. So you guys can just visit you know where to look through my album and my photos.