A week with the Akha Hilltribe
Last we left off we were on a train to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, that train ride was about one month ago today. We spent a couple of uneventful days in the city of Chiang Mai and then took a two hour bus ride up to Chiang Rai to join a week long homestay with an Akha hilltribe family.
While in Chiang Mai we took a sangthiaw (truckbus) up to a temple that overlooks the city. Here people are asking for blessings from Buddha.
And here is Lauren with a big hat on.
In Chiang Rai we met up with Athu (pronounced Ah-too), the leader of AFECT, an organization that helps provide education, medical aid and other resources to the Akha Hilltribe of which he is a member. Before embarking on our homestay they took us to an elephant camp for a ride. Here's the view from the top.
After a 30-minute ride we arrived at an Akha village. Lauren and I stayed in the dorm/museum behind Athu's house. There was one other western couple already in the village (Adrien and Delphine, more on them later) who were staying with Athu's brother's family down the hill (Athu's brother is henceforth known as Abe, pronounced Ah-bay). The next morning we helped out doing some farming work, which on this occasion consisted of loading bags of old corn husks into a truck to transport down the hill for composting. One of AFECT's goals is to move the tribe toward sustainable farming. Athu is on the right, Aje (Ah-jay) on the left.
A fish getting ready for one of our many meals with Abe's family.
Sifting some ashes. The remainder is used in the preparation of a special root that is only eaten during ceremonies. This is Miga, Abe's wife.
We spent some time with a shaman woman from the tribe. Here's she's picking healing herbs for our time in the Akha Sauna! The sauna was a room with some benches in it. Steam from the herbs is piped in from a stove outside. Nice.
Athu's father (Apa) and the shaman. Here they are preparing some homemade stuff that all the old people chew similar to chewing tobacco. It has tobacco, roots, tea and who knows what else in it. They claim its for brushing their teeth but it makes their mouths bright red. The first time we saw someone chewing the stuff we thought they were bleeding profusely from the mouth.
Every family in the village has a traditional ceremony called the new rice ceremony before they begin the year's rice harvest. We were lucky enough to be with Abe and his family for their ceremony. We started by waking up early to head up into a special rice field where we would harvest the first grains of rice for the year. The entire countryside where this tribe lives is gorgeous, and this was one of the most beautiful sites we've seen on the trip. They don't call 'em hilltribes for nothin and you can see here the rolling hills covered with early morning mist.
We hopped out of the truckbed and walked a little way into the fields. The guy with the hat is Abe.
Some of the rice we harvested by hand for the ceremony.
Aje harvesting.
Here we are in the field. We needed 5-liters of rice which took about 30-minutes to get.
These guys and gals lived at Abe's house. They kept us company. And luckily Lauren didn't have a motorbike at her disposal.
Our ride for the week. We spent a lot of time in this thing. Here's Lauren with her field boots after the harvest.
One of our meals while with Abe's family. Everything is always served family style. We really loved the food but after a week of it our Western sensibilities got the best of us and we hit the town of Chiang Rai to grab some pizza with Delphine and Adrian.
After the harvest the family prepared the new rice. You husk rice by crushing it with a giant seesaw hammer. The operator (in this example Lauren) pushes the seesaw up and down with her foot. The risk taker (in this example Abe's wife) reaches her hand into the bowl on Lauren's beat while the hammer is up to stir the rice around.
In the next part of the ceremony the family kills a chicken as a sacrifice to the ancestors. The chicken has to be killed in the women's sleeping area, and this is the only time of year men are supposed to go in there. Here's Abe choking the chicken. Next everyone participating (including us) eats a little bit of the now cooked new rice.
A few minutes later the chicken is butchered.
Adrian helping to prepare some food for the rest of the ceremony. We did this all day.
Delphine and I doing our part. Here we're peeling bamboo into strips. This one of the dishes we ate every day. You just strip the bamboo and then boil it. Next dip in spicy sauce. Delicious!
And the most exciting part of the ceremony before the party. The pig sacrifice. The men are disturbingly excited (including me, I can't help it). This time we sacrifice in the men's quarters. Skip the next 6 if you're squeamish.
The pig, still alive at this point is held with his neck across a block.
We didn't have a good shot of the knife going in but Adrien took a video hopefully to be posted on facebook. A village elder stabs the pig in the neck with a ceremonial knife and during the subsequent squealing the blood is collected in a bowl for use in blood soup. Here the pig is already dead and cut open for removal of organs and guts.
We celebrate succesful pig sacrifice by drinking shots of rice whisky while in the background a village elder reads the pig's liver to determine the family's future over the next year. All was good.
Water balloon or pig gall-bladder? Let's just say you wouldn't want to have one of these pop on your face.
Chopping up some buffalo meat and submerging it in buffalo blood to make sausage. Yum! (it was actually really good)
Mmmmm.... ribs! Just like being back home.
Chickens... cool. Twenty or thirty people (friends from the village and elsewhere) started showing up for dinner.
Ok, finally we were ready to get the party kicked off. The elder women all wear their traditional garb and no one is allowed to start eating before they do as a show of respect of their role as leader of household.
Dinner for us. Rice-whisky is poured, chopsticks are utilized. Lauren tries blood soup.
We ate and drank into the night.
The older men hanging out upstairs, away from the young revelers.
Me and Athu/Abe's father straight chillin.
PARTY!!! Unfortunately the night ended in disaster for Adrien and I as we both had just a teensy bit too much to drink. Luckily for the two of us we don't remember the rest but unluckily for the two of us our girlfriends do. Oh, and midnight marked the start of Lauren's birthday.
The next day the others went on a jungle trek for an hour. I remained behind because I hate hiking. Ok I was still sleeping off the previous night's indulgences. Later the family put on a surprise birthday ceremony for Lauren. As we sat down for dinner all the lights in the house were suspiciously off and out came Abe carrying the dinner table covered in candles. From our perspective sitting indian-style on the floor we couldn't tell what else was on the table and assumed a cake. But when the table was set down lo-and-behold a freshly dead chicken draped with black string sat in the center. Happy birthday Lauren! We each tied a string around her wrist for good health and good travels. She's still wearing them as I write this today. We didn't have a camera for this but Adrien and Delphine got some shots which we hope to post in the appendix.
Co (short for Coca-cola) was a big boy, Delphine timid.
Ouir farewell breakfast. With the eggs you can see some necklaces they gave us as gifts and some more string for our wrists.
Goodbye to this wonderful family who gave us the only real home we've had during our travels.
Heading back to Chiang Rai, Adrien strikes a pose.
We took a circuitous route back to hit a town that had a view into Burma. Behold Burma!
The next day they took us to the White Temple outside of Chiang Rai. Designed by a famous Thai artist and built only a few years ago this was way different from any temples we'd seen.
Along the side of the bridge heading into the temple hundreds of hands reach up, presumably from the depths of hell.
The inside walls of the temple were painted by the same artist with plenty of contemporary references including Neo from the Matrix and Superman as well as this portrait of the two towers disaster with one of the towers wrapped in a gas pump. Does this insensitively diminish the sad aspect of the lives lost in the tradgedy or is it a valuable political statement? Please comment below.
