Exploring Rice Fields
Posted by Stuart at 08:22 PM on July 11, 2003Today has been as close to perfect as can be. "No" eventually picked me up at the bus stop and drove me 15 kilometers into the mountains to his Karen hilltribe village. His sister and her Swiss husband own a guesthouse here. It's a classic bungalow-style guesthouse with amazing views of the bamboo forest mountains and the narrow rice paddy valleys.
After eating (and discovering that No is a great cook), showering, sleeping and then eating again, No and I walked through his village of Ban Thung Phrao. The village is segregated into three separate areas -- one for each of the Karen, Akha, and Lahu tribes who live there. He pointed out each to me with hints of differences in the peoples' dress and in their homes.
It's planting season now, so as we walked through the terraced fields, we watched villagers in the ankle-deep water planting the young rice seedlings. The terraces run the spectrum now: from dry and unplowed, dry and plowed, full of water, and planted. I have seem many rice fields from the road, but to actually walk through the fields was a new experience for me. We walked single-file on the narrow edge of the terraces, looking into the standing water for bu na and kai gop (field crabs and frog eggs). I even petted a grazing water buffalo for the first time.
After our hike, we needed to get some food to cook for dinner, so we got back on the motorbike and headed through the village and onto the curvy, narrow but paved valley road. We passed through many hilltribe villages: Akha, Lahu, Lisu, and Karen. No would point them out to me as we passed. I tried to learn the subtle differences, but I think I will need more practice to develop that skill.
Now that we are back home, that only means one thing: more food! So I sit here in the open air restaurant of the guesthouse, looking out over the valley as the sun set behind me, drinking a Singha beer, listening to music by the "Buena Vista Social Club" (ok, so it's not Thai, but it fits in with the jungle atmosphere) and eagerly awaiting the dinner that I can smell cooking in the kitchen.
