The owner, Darren, is married to a Thai Loir tribeswoman. She was representing her village in the games and would be wearing traditional costume and taking part in the event throughout the day.
Darren and his wife, Sin, have a gorgeous daughter Choi, who’s about 5 years old and most engaging. They have a compound in the village which houses their own more contemporary house and 4 traditional bamboo huts on their land. This is where we would stay.
The group only consisted of myself and a Dutch gentleman, Leon Noordermeer. Who it turned out has had quite a difficult, fascinating and eventful life. We shared many stories in the evenings after our days activities and I became very fond of him. An older gentleman, he’s an international journalist and photographer. But more about Leon later.
On the way up we stopped outside the elephant training camp and had a chance to snap a few photos of elephants grazing in the hillsides, but also tethered with a long chain.
We wound our way past the town of Chang Doa, outside of which stopped to visit the Chang Doa caves. The caves are electrically lit, but power was out so we saw them through the oldfashioned light of a kerosene lamp. I think it was more lovely than seeing them by electric light as we would have been seeming them just as the ancient monks would have.
Travelling on up to the compound in the Nongook village, we settled into our respective huts and changed for dinner on the terrace. I say terrace, but the family’s house is in the process of being built, so it’s a rather grandeous name for the porch right now. However we had a marvelous time eating a traditional Thai cooked dinner and downing some beers, whiskey and sake that we’d found when we stopped at a tiny little roadside store on the way up.
My hut was the first one in the row
The next morning we woke up early, had breakfast, and went for a walk in the hills around the village with Darren. The scenery is breathtaking as it surrounds the village. The village itself is full of families that are related and have lived in the community for generations. Though modern amenities such as electricity and running water are available, they are intermittent. The roads are really laneways which become very difficult to drive through without a 4 wheel drive at a minimum, especially during the rainy season. On the road to the village we traveled through water logged and potholed dirt tracks, keeping the windows closed so that the branches for the trees and hedgerows wouldn’t hit us.
Walking through the fields made me feel a little like being back in Wexford, Ireland. Another place where I spent a lot of time exploring the fields and surrounding countryside when vacationing there with my family every year.
But the most astounding thing was to be able to see the tiled red roof of the Burmese army watching the border between Thailand and Burma. So close yet so far. Though Thai people might make it through the valley and over the hillside to the Burmese side, Farang would be very foolish to attempt to cross at a non-approved crossing.
Burmese border
After returning to the compound for breakfast we took off in Darren’s 4 wheel drive truck for the Games. As a bit of background Darren told us that Thai people don’t actually own their land, the King does. The King has given the care of the land over to the Army, who in turn give out the parcels of land to the people who farm and take care of it. The Army setup the Annual Games event so that the tribes scattered throughout the hills farming the land, can come together as a community.
Singing and dancing up a storm on behalf of their tribe
The atmosphere was happy and excited. You could see the preparations still going within each of the tribes canopied areas. They had already begun what would turn out to be a day of singing and dancing their hearts out to show each other how well they could do it. Literally all day long the tribes kept singing and dancing with small breaks here and there. And a longer one for lunch.
Their costumes are magnificent. Each tribe has their own variation on costumes. I don’t know the reasons why each specifically have been made in a particular way, but I’m guessing certain adornments or ways of wearing or folding clothing has significance to each tribe. Sin, our hostess, being from the Loir tribe had a long lunghi type skirt with a jacket over it that was covered in silver button-like dots. Some quite large. In bright red with the silver dots she sparkled in the sun.
The field that had been turned into a Games arena was surrounded by some of the Burmese owned mountains in the distance. These are the very beginnings of the foothills of the Himalayas.
A beautiful head dress
All day long the games continued. Most of the games used everyday objects or implements in their races. Every member of the tribe that had been selected to take part in the games took part in events throughout the day. It didn’t matter how young, how old, whether male or female. They just put their hearts into whatever event they were in and thoroughly enjoyed it. You could see the pride and enjoyment on their faces in every single game.
Some games I saw were rice thrashing and sifting, a race to see who could trash and sift rice the quickest. A basket weaving competition, racing to bundle logs up, tied by hand with straw and run to the other end of the short track. Weaving of bamboo into mats. Several relay races were hilarious. One was with the huge round flat straw rice sifters on people’s heads. Another was with baskets full of pumpkins where the strap of the basket is around the forehead. Believe it or not, one relay race was with bamboo stilts. Each person got up on their stilts raced around the short track and handed them onto the next person. As young and old took part there were some very entertaining and hilarious moments.
Running the rice-basket-on-the-head race
Other races were running the track while pushing a rubber wheel with a stick. Another race had team members with pieces of bamboo that had been made into a very large mug, being used to scoop water out of large barrels at one end of the track and racing with it to the other end to fill the Team’s tub. The team buckets that were to be filled were huge, it took a long time to fill them to win. The joy and enthusiasm on the faces of the runners was catching, the crowd clapped and cheered them on. Their enormous efforts to win showed in red faces and runners out of breath, but they kept going.
Towards the end of the day the wooden spinning top event started. In this men twirl twine around a wooden spinning top. They hurl the spinning top at the ground while pulling the twine which sets it off spinning at a ripping pace. A second man hurls his spinning top at the first with the goal of knocking it out of the spinning area. When one top successfully knocks another out of the ring you have to duck as the speed with which it hurtles out is dangerous. I know, I got hit by one of the spinning tops on the shin of my leg. So badly that a couple of weeks later it still was not healed, had a huge bump and I ended up taking myself to the hospital. It had become infected and the doctor had to open the wound and clean it out. Painful. I heard some children got accidentally hit by some of the spinning tops that day. It’s very dangerous and with their small size I’m sure it could easily kill them if hit on the head.
Spinning Tops Competition
Food at lunch time was 10 baht a plate. The feeling of community spirit was just unbelievable. Children were everywhere and they looked at myself and Leon with great curiosity. We were the only 2 Farang there besides Darren, who they knew. I think it’s the fair skin, blue eyes and freckles that they find so curious. Even children are a community effort. Adults will take care of whatever child is in their vicinity, not just their own. Children are used to that and easily allow themselves to be taken care of by adults around them.
After the games we headed back to the compound. Dinner was going to be a while so Sinm went to talk with the village ladies in the lane and I went along. It was great just sitting on the tiniest of stools in the middle of the dirt track listening to the local women talk. Not that I understood a word of their Thai, but it didn’t matter. The evening drew to a close and when it was quite dark we headed back to the compound and ate dinner. Sin’s brother had made a traditional Lanna soup dish with pork. The herbs had been gathered fresh from the fields and it was spicy and delicious.
We sat and talked after dinner as another gorgeous sunset was replaced by 3/4-full moon light that highlighted clouds that looked like little ripples in the sky.
The next morning we took off early for the Chinese village where the local market was getting under way. Here was a real market, not one specifically geared towards Farang tourists. Again we were an item of curiosity because we were the only Farang there.
As we headed back to Chiang Mai we passed the villages of the Lisu, the Moussa (carpenters) and Lahoo. Along the road we picked up some Lycee and Rambuttan fruit.
I arrived back at The Rose Guest House wounded, bruised, disheveled and thoroughly happy. Jeff was there to meet me, I was very happy.
No comments:
Post a Comment