Chiang Rai Day 2 : The Tribal Village of Chiang Rai Mountains - The Kayau Karen or Yellow Karen Tribe

From the Thai Agriculture Park, it was another hour drive or so to the tribal village of Chiang Rai. We had to walk down a narrow mountain path and up a little hill to reach the tribal village. The main tribe of the region is the Akhas - originally from the Tibet-China region. They have settled her long enough to have obtained citizenship and land-ownership rights to the farms they work on. Newer arrivals like the Padong do not enjoy these benefits yet and could only become cheap farm-hands of the land-owners.

Akha arts and crafts

a Lahu grandma working on her shawl

the Yellow Lahu ladies have long stretched out ears

the houses of the tribal families

Chiang Rai Day 2 : The Thai Agriculture Park

Quite nearby was the TAP farm ( Thai Agriculture Park?). We decided to make a brief stop. This part of northern Thailand is largely an agriculture region. Apart from terrace rice fields, fruit farming is a common activity. Mandarins, lychees and longans, rambutans and mangoes. Mango was not in season yet and the ones we saw were from the south of Thailand. Coffee is also a big industry here as evidenced from the many coffee outlets of various brands that matched the Starbucks of the world.

bananas, mandarins, mangoes
flowers

mandarins

roses

TAP coffee for RM 4 instead of RM 12 @ Starbucks

Chiang Rai Day 2 : Lunch @ Mae Kok Village Resort

Due to the time spent dislodging our boat from the sand-bar - we arrived late at the pick-up point at the end of the river cruise. However our hotel limousine was there waiting for our arrival and the driver gave us a bottle of ice-cold water and cold towels to freshen up.

From the pick-up point we were driven to the Mae Kok Village Resort for lunch. This is a relatively new hotel owned and run by a European expatriate. The hotel has a ccoking school and conducts summer camps for students of International Scholls from different parts of the world. That day we saw a group of students from the Dubai International School going through a class in 'kayaking'.

Our lunch was an international buffet spread.

comfortable chalets

Mae Kok (Kok River) seen from the restaurant

this lake used for 'kayaking' lessons

Arab, Iranian, Lebanese and Caucasian students

from the Dubai International School

Chiang Rai Day 2 : Riding the Rapids

Having freed ourselves from the sand bar - we had to rush to our pick-up point which was another 30 minutes upstream. The boatman sped upriver - the stretch of which was becoming more shallow with frequent rapids to go over. He commented that if did not rain for another month, it would be impossible to provide this boat tour because the river would become too shallow.

Along the way we passed some local village folks fishing, some girls wading to cross the river and children having a great day swimming. There was also a raft boat of a group of tourists who rafted down the river and slept on the raft along the way.

We reached our pick-up point at around 1 pm - almost an hour or so beyond the original planned time. We were delayed at the Karen village when we took the one hour elephant ride and then when we got the boat stuck on the sand bar. The Le Meridien limousine and driver was waiting for us. We were given a cold towel to freshen up and a cold bottle of mineral water. From there we parted company with our boat man and carried on the next part of the tour on the limousine.

the top most picture was of a holiday 'raft'

and the picture above were of some girls wading across the river....
fishing in the river

these kids were happy to be photographed....

bye-bye to our boat man

and pleased to meet our limousine driver.....

Chiang Rai Day 2 : Stuck on a Sand-Bar

Despite the speed and the increasingly rougher rapids, credits must be given to our boat-man as he handled the boat very professionally. We were not splashed with any of the river water at all. He was very steady - kept a good speed and moved very fast through narrow an fast rapids. Our tour guide praised him for the good work and told us the boatman was a good navigator who knew the river well. He spoke too fast for soon after that the boatman drove the boat onto a sand-bar which was not supposed to be in the middle of the river. Being quite fast, we had slid quite far and deep in the middle of the sand bar.

It was quite far away from any village or town and of course there was no telecommunication signal. The three men on the boat jumped out and started shaking the boat loose. We managed to turn the boat to face downstream hoping to slide it back into water. The boat turned out to be quite heavy.

We next started digging out the sand from the side of the boat - pakdokter using the boat's paddle and the other two gentlemen using their hands. We did not make much progress and the boat-man was sighing helplessly and regretfully more and more. Credit to him he was calm and never lost his temper despite the palpable agitation. He must be 'cursing' in his heart.

Lucky for us after about an hour a boat came by from upstream carrying a group of Chinese tourists. The boat-man and his adolescent son stopped their boat and came over to help us out. The four of us moved the boat side to side thus creating a deep valley in the sand bar where our boat was stranded. Water started to trickle in to the created depression slowly floating our boat enabling us to push it forward back to the river.

What a relief.

Pakdokter could not help notice that the able-bodied Chinese men ( toruists) did not mke any effort to get out of the boat to help us out. But thanks to them anyway for letting their boat-men help us out.

Chiang Rai Day 2 : Back on the Mae Kok

After about an hour at the Lahu village, we went back to our boat and moved on upstream. We had to go up another 60 km or so where our hotel limousine would be waiting to pick us up for the next part o the tour. The river which was intially calm and deep became shallower with more rocks in the middle of the river thus forcing the navigator to cleverly negotiate the rapids. This was quite an experience. The boat was going at quite a speed and the navigator knew the waters well.

more and more rocks

a little rapids to negotiate

water buffaloes